The Prodigal
by DCWash
Summary: I started writing my four-part fic on Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Allan a Dale Including His Fortunes Before, During, and After the Sherwood Rebellion, and somehow wound up with this.
1. Chapter 1 Ghost Town

**Title:** _The Prodigal_. Chapter 1, "Ghost Town"

**Author:** DCWash

**Characters:** Robin, OC (Winifred), Little John, Allan.

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** Everybody

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 4323

**Summary: **Okay, so I started writing my four-part fic on Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Allan a Dale Including His Fortunes Before, During, and After the Sherwood Rebellion, and somehow wound up with this. Which doesn't even mention Allan until the very end. Which I guess makes it a preamble, or part five of a quartet, or something. At any rate, it starts to address what happens to the whole gang after Vasey is overthrown. Though other parts will concentrate on Allan, we'll also catch up with the others. This part is rated G, but I'm going to be getting into some potentially sensitive topics in future parts, so the rating for them will probably change.

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NB: "Fæder" is Anglo-Saxon/Old English for "father."

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Robin rode his high horse through the hamlet of Featherstone, straggled out as it was along what passed for a road, and thought, "What a pit!" There was a general dilapidation about the place: cottages were abandoned, fields had gone to seed. Occasionally a face would peek out of a doorframe—there usually wasn't an actual door hanging there, at most a curtain—to see who was going by, but otherwise, there were few signs of life. Featherstone had belonged to Vasey, not that long ago. He ran it into the ground and treated the peasants who lived there abominably, and as soon as word got out that King Richard had exiled the former sheriff to France, the serfs abandoned the place and lit out for Nottingham, the nearest town, in the hopes of freedom. A few had trickled back—hence the faces in the doorways—when they realized that all they knew was farming and that they had no way of earning even the piddling living they got from Vasey so long as they stayed in town. Even serfdom was better than starvation amidst strangers.

Robin continued the thought. "It may be a pit, but it's _your_ pit now, old son, so you'd better start doing something about it." He was surprised to realize that he had never been there. He didn't have much reason to before, but now that the king had confiscated Vasey's lands and handed them over to Robin, he was going to have to make sure the cottages were habitable and the land productive.

Robin couldn't tell you what he was looking for as he went through Featherstone, except that he knew that he had found it when he came to a more substantial house than the rest of the cottages on the edge of town. There was nothing grand about it—it wasn't even as impressive as his own manor house, which he loved but would be the first to admit was fairly low down on the scale of the nobility's architectural wonders. But it was bigger than the rest of the cottages, and felt more solid. It was also in better repair, actually thanks to Robin: Winifred had refused to ask him for help but when Little John told him that Winifred had come home from her time with their gang in the forest to find a gaping hole in one wall and the roof, Robin had sent round a mason to make things right. In fact, that new masonry was the determining factor in making Robin realize he had the right place. Well, that and the bake oven out behind, now tended by a woman who must have been pushing fifty but was still only very slightly stooped.

"Ho, Lord Huntingdon! How are you? Give us a hand with this and I'll give you a current bun!" Robin was never sure how seriously to take it when Winifred teased like that. If he knew the truth, he might be surprised at how much she genuinely respected him for his character and intelligence, and for the authority his title gave him…but earl or not, a lad's still a lad, and what lad doesn't like buns?

She gave Robin an eager smile: she was pretty sure why he was there. They carried the loaves inside and went through the pleasantries—Marian was as well as ever; Djaq was out helping Matilda deliver a set of twins; here, move closer to the fire and have a warm—as Robin gave his horse a handful of hay in the stall off the cottage's main room and Winifred put a handful of something in a pot to brew.

All of that done, Winifred turned to Robin and clasped her hands together, obviously anticipating some great pleasure.

"Well, here it is. The deed." Robin pulled a small scroll of parchment out of his cloak and gave it a little wave.

Winifred's eyes flickered. Robin thought she even licked her lips. This was obviously important to her, as he expected, but she tried to tamp down her eagerness a bit.

"So, I suppose I need to sign it?"

"Yeah. Here, here, and…here."

"Wait. If I'm going to put my name to a thing, I want to make sure I know what I'm getting into." She took the document and squinted…stretched her hand out to arm's length…leaned to get a better light from the fire.... Robin was inclined to take it and read it to her but he knew Winifred was proud of her literacy and chose not to interfere while she slowly mouthed the Latin words to herself.

She sighed, nodded, and grinned in satisfaction. It was all as they had discussed, only now—almost--official and legal.

Winifred started searching for ink, and found a feather, and sharpened the point, and signed here…here…and here. So did Robin.

"Ooh, wait. Doesn't it need a seal?" she said. Robin, with a flourish, presented his signet ring and a stick of red wax. Winifred pulled a brand out of the fire and held it with one hand while Robin held the wax over it so that the melted wax dripped on the parchment next to his name.

"Robin is this…is it real? I mean, do I _really_ own it?"

Robin was so worn out with surveys and deeds and lawsuits about land that he was tempted to wave his hand and airily say, "Oh, do _any_ of us _really_ own _any_ land? What's ownership, anyway?" but thought better of it. He knew what she was getting at—that the law was murky about women owning property.

"I…think so. I did the best I could to get it all straightened out.

"Besides, the way I understand it, legally, the only one who could have any standing to raise an objection is _me,_ and the only one I could sue over it is _you._ And I'm the one giving it to you in the first place." He saw no point in raising things out of their control: of Vasey still lurking in France, or of what heirs could or would or might have done, either the heirs of hers that were lost or the heirs of his that had yet to be born.

Winifred nodded. She trusted him, and knew that "the best he could do" would be the best _any_one could do. She couldn't ask for more.

Robin tore the sheet into three pieces, each with a signed and sealed copy of the deed. "This one's for you…this one's for me…and this one I'll file at the castle for safekeeping."

And that was that. The two and a half hides her husband had fought in Tripoli to earn, that she had hung onto with her fingernails while Vasey pecked away at its edges, taking an acre here and an acre there until it was all gone…it was restored. Two and a half hides, plus another couple of virgates of Robin's own inheritance that he insisted she take as compensation for her help feeding and fighting for the gang in Sherwood Forest. (She had refused at first, partly because she didn't feel her relatively short time with the gang warranted payment, but also because…_Bloody hell, what am I going to do with thirty acres of fenland two counties away?_—a thought she kept to herself.) Winifred had her manor back. She beamed at Robin, and she beamed at the parchment, and she clapped her hands together.

"Well now! How about that bun?"

Robin pulled a stool up to the fire and, finally, took off his damp cloak. "The bun would be lovely, but I've actually got some more business I'd like to discuss with you."

"Really? (Here you go. Those buns are best when you've drizzled honey on them, but I'm low on honey—you can put some in your peppermint tea or on your bun, so long as you promise not to make a mess, but not both.) Oh? And what kind of business can I help you with?"

"Things are finally getting to the point where I know what's what enough to start settling up with the lads."

Winifred nodded, but didn't say anything.

"It's been pretty overwhelming! Figuring out what was mine to begin with, and getting it back, and then figuring out what Vasey owned…. It was easy enough with Much, since I knew from the start that I wanted to give him Bonchurch, and you…well, that was all spelled out in a deed already, but the others…. And I don't want to evict people just so I can give their land to my friends…."

Winifred though he sounded a little guilty. Well, maybe he _should_ feel a little guilty. After all, it was going on six months now since they had laid siege to Nottingham and the king had exiled Vasey, and except for Much, the whole gang was still at loose ends, and John hadn't even really left the forest. That's why she just nodded again—silence would make him stew more than words would.

"But I've got this idea for John. And that's what you can help me with."

Winifred pricked up her ears. John was an old friend. The younger people had somehow gotten it into their heads that she and he had courted in their youth and she let them continue with it rather than give a full explanation of complicated village relationships thirty years ago. She was rather afraid Robin's notion would involve John becoming the overseer of her property, or, worse, marrying her.

"Your father was the royal forester in Sherwood, wasn't he?"

Well, now. This was going to be interesting after all.

"Mmm. Under-forester, actually. And under-huntsman and under-lots-of-other-things, I believe. He's the one who did all the work, at any rate."

"That's what I thought. Well, now the king has named _me_ royal forester. And there's no way I'm going to be able to look after Sherwood and look after my own estate as well."

"Of course not." She wasn't being sarcastic.

"I was thinking John might be the man for the job, but I wanted to see what you thought first. You know more about what's involved than I do."

"Well, John knows the forest better than any man out there, that's for sure, unless you count me." Just as she wasn't being sarcastic before, Winifred wasn't bragging now—it was a simple statement of fact. "On the other hand…." She furrowed her brow in thought. "…first of all, Sherwood's awfully big. He can't be the only one you hire. And (he'll shoot me for saying this) it's heavy work, what with all the timbering and all, and he's not getting any younger."

"But there may be a way to work around that last part. Look, I might be remembering this wrong, but I think the way my father handled it was this." Winifred was becoming more animated with the memories. "My grandfather, not my father, was first named under-forester, for services he gave King Stephen during all that mess with Queen Matilda or some such. As he got older, he handed off more of his duties to my father, along with more of his pay, until eventually my father was doing almost all the work and getting almost all the money and my grandfather was taking what amounted to a small pension. And then—and I'm sure I _do_ remember this rightly, because it was such a big day in our house—it came to the point where the two of them went before Henry, when his court came to Lincoln I think it was, and made it official: my father got the title of under-forester, and the same pay he'd been getting from my grandfather, and my grandfather got a royal pension. Then, as my father got older, he kind of did the same thing. I was in Tripoli by that point so I don't know the details, but since he didn't have a son to pass the job to, he hired lads from the area to help out, paying them out of his salary. And then of course Vasey was named royal forester and Fæder died and Vasey kept the pay that would have gone to a new under-forester for himself and the whole place went to the dogs…_but!_ There's no reason why you and John couldn't make something similar work out!" Winifred was warming to her subject. "Yeah. I can see this working! Are you thinking of giving him land, too?"

"Actually, I was thinking of this instead of land. If he had land, he'd have to farm it, or find somebody else to farm it, and from what I hear, he was none to great at that even back in the old days. Plus, the main point of owning land is so that you have something to pass on, to build a little dynasty with, you know?" Yes, Winifred did know, and it was a sore subject, which Robin had forgotten for the moment. "But John doesn't have any children except for the one son who's moved away, and I honestly can't see him having any more at this stage, can you? So I'd think regular cash in hand, for the rest of his life, might be more welcome. It's a fair bit of money, really. Probably more than he'd make from the land."

"Mmmm. There is one other thing, though." Winifred poured them both some more peppermint tea. Robin wondered if he'd look too greedy if he had another bun. Winifred passed him the plate without his asking. "There _is_ a law enforcement component to this job. Do you think John's up for that? Can you honestly see him bringing in poachers for judgment, or shooting arrows at people to keep them from felling trees? I seem to recall my father locking somebody up in a wood hut overnight once, when I was a girl. (La, it scared me so, I was awake all night fearing the bogey-man was going to break out of that shed and come and get me!) But back then, the 'royal forest' was only woodland, and the king hadn't declared every little farm and hamlet in the area to be under his forest law. So Fæder never had to worry about arresting a man for snaring rabbits in his own garden or the like."

Now it was Robin's turn to nod. "I think…" he said as he stared into the fire, "…I think there's a way to work around that." Winifred thought it best not to ask how a former outlaw, now a mighty earl, would "work around" the kind of law that allowed the king to trample a man's wheat field just so he could chase another boar, or that forbade a crofter from putting up fences to keep the deer from eating his crops.

They fell into the proverbial companionable silence for long enough that Winifred began to think Robin was hypnotized by the fire. And she did have things to do….

"To do the job, would he have to live in the woods like your family did?" For Robin, it was a way to go through the back door to what he considered "Item Three on the Agenda," a matter that he knew would require some delicacy of approach.

"Hmmm? What? You know, I haven't thought about it. Of course, we were there for other reasons besides my father's work, you know. Complicated reasons. I don't know that John would _have_ to live in the woods. At least not all year round. Why do you ask?"

"Well, like you said, he's not getting any younger. The thought of him living there, all alone, especially in winter…it bothers me. What if something happened? What if he hurt himself chopping wood, or his cabin caught on fire while he was asleep? Nobody would know. At least, if he made his house in Locksley, nothing like that could happen."

"And his old house _is_ right on the edge if the woods," Winifred replied. But her eyes narrowed. She had a feeling where this conversation was going, and she didn't like it. Not one little bit.

"Yeah, we could look after him there. All of us."

"Robin…."

"…Marian could pop round with a poultice when he gets one of his colds…."

"…Robin…."

"…he could tell the children ghost stories in winter…."

"…Robin!" This fantasy of his was getting alarming.

"…and if _you_ moved to Locksley, too…." Robin was about to say something about John maybe combing the dried leaves out of his beard but was interrupted.

"Robin, you just this minute gave me title to land in Featherstone! Why would I want to up and move to Locksley?"

Robin knew better than to say what was within his heart. What he felt, deep down, was that John and Winifred settling down in Locksley for he and Marian and Will and Djaq and whoever else to look after would be a step toward making the world right again. The way it was supposed to work, you were supposed to take care of your parents when they got old. It was their payback for taking care of you when you were young. And, in return, as you aged, you were supposed to be able to start taking it easier, to hand off your duties and your hard work to your children so that you might reap the reward of ease. Or at least, that was how it was supposed to work. But recent events meant neither Robin, nor Marian, nor Will or Djaq, nor, he supposed, Allan, had parents to take care of—in Will and Marian's case, the loss could be laid directly at Vasey's feet. At the same time, John and Winifred had each, separately, lost their children because of Vasey, and now, as they were getting to the point in life where they should be putting their feet up and telling their grandchildren tales, one was burrowed away in a damp forest and the other hauled sacks of bread for miles to make a little money. It wasn't right. If he said as much, though, he knew all he'd get from Winifred was a tirade about how she wasn't old, how she could look after herself, how she could still climb to the top of Brigand's Bluff faster than you can, young man…. All of which would be true, but wouldn't be true forever. He didn't even think that the argument that it would be good them—the younger generation—for Winifred and John to move to Locksley would work.

"You can live in one place and own land in another. I do. And it's not that far away. It's, what, a thirty-minute walk?"

"If it's not that far away, why should I move? Why not stay here and tote my bread to Locksley to sell like I've been doing? No. There's no reason for it! It's my home! My community!"

"And there's no reason to stay here. Winifred, look around you. It's a ghost town! There's no community here to be a part of!"

"And what about my ovens?"

"I'll build you a new oven."

"And a house? Where am I supposed to live? I'm too old to be a boarder like when I was an apprentice. Djaq living here is making me mad enough as it is; God knows what it would be like to have to be…_gracious_… to a bunch of strangers. And you!" She shook a finger at Robin. "I know you're going to say you have plenty of room, but no you don't!"

"I've got a nice cottage all lined up for you. Two rooms." Two rooms in a house was something of a luxury. That's what Winifred had here—a main room with a hearth in the center, a good-sized stall for the animals where Robin's horse was even now munching hay, a small room on the other side that was once for the children but now was where Djaq slept, and Robin's mason had added a little alcove for a bed in the main room so Winifred could have both the warmth from the fire and a curtain for privacy. She doubted if Robin's cottage could top that. Still….

"I don't want to push anybody else and I can't think of anything else for it. You said yourself, you don't want to evict people just so you can give their land to your friends."

"It belongs to a nice young couple with a growing who want a bigger place.. No pushing involved."

So on the one hand she could stay here in her old home, the one her husband had built and added to himself and was so proud of, in the company of a handful of squatters, and hope Featherstone became a real village again sometime before she died. On the other hand, she could move to Locksley, where her friends were, where she was happy in her youth, where there were enough people to provide her with a living as a baker, and where everybody would treat her like the enfeebled elderly lady she most definitely was not.

Robin moved in for the kill. "I'll find you some tenants to farm your land. All you'll have to do is collect the rent. They can pay you in grain for your bread…."

Winifred murmured, "This place _is_ full of ghosts…." Robin had meant the term figuratively; the way Winifred looked, he wondered if she meant it literally.

But she took a deep breath, drew herself up, and said. "No. No. I can't. What if he comes back, and I'm not here? I can't have that happen."

"Winifred," Robin said gently, "I pored through the records. I couldn't find a thing. I didn't see where he was hanged, or even outlawed. Dunstan's just…gone."

Robin was a bit puzzled. Winifred always spoke of her youngest child in the past-tense. The story in the villages was that he had grabbed his late father's sword and run off into the night to avenge his sister's death while he was still so young his voice had barely broken, and that he hadn't been seen since. Robin had always wondered if that was why Winifred treated him and the others the way she did—she hadn't quite finished raising her children when they were taken from her, so she turned to the gang and picked up where she left off.

But no. Winifred was shaking her head. "No. I know Dunstan's gone. God forgive me, but I've given up on him." Not quite, not really, there was still half a glimmer of hope she'd see him again. "He's dead; I know it. You may not have found a record but, knowing Vasey, he thought killing just another peasant didn't warrant an official record. No, I mean Allan."

Ah. Of course. She and Allan had started off on the wrong foot when Winifred joined the gang but that had reversed itself as time went on. Maybe she thought he needed more mothering than the others.

"Winifred, if he didn't come back from Christmas…then I don't think he's coming back." Robin tried to be gentle again. This time it was as much for himself. Allan was his friend, his comrade, his brother-in-arms. He missed his company. And he felt guilty. Nobody could talk to Allan about it, but he was obviously having a hard time adjusting to a life as an ex-outlaw. Nobody could talk _to_ him, but everybody could talk _about_ him. He was more temperamental; when he did drift through the area, it looked like he wasn't taking as good care of himself as he used to; Marian suspected he had arrived at their wedding feast already drunk, which worried her much more than it angered her. No, nobody knew exactly what was going on, but Robin felt responsible anyway.

"I know." She reached out a sympathetic hand to Robin. "But the thing is, I told him…I told him when he left the last time that if he ever needed a place to come home to, he'd find it here. He laughed it off, but…the thought of him dragging himself back, and finding this place empty…." Her voice wobbled a bit. "I don't want to be another one to let him down, that's all."

Robin took that as a reproach. "Winifred, really, I'm doing the best I can!" he pleaded. "But I don't know how to help! Much knows farming and Will knows carpentry and now there's John with the forest, but what can Allan do? I mean, literally: what can he _do?_ I thought maybe I'd gotten some town properties out of all this, and that Alan could have a little tavern in Nottingham or something, but no." He shook his head in despair. And guilt. Allan was the one who most desperately needed a reward for his work in the gang, and the one who had gotten the least out of it.

"Now Robin of Locksley, Earl of Huntingdon, Royal Forester of Sherwood, you listen to me!" Winifred had snapped back into her mothering mode. "Whatever is going on with that boy is not your fault. It's _not your fault!_ Not directly, at any rate. The day's going to come when he shows up at my door, and I'll bring him in and dry him off and warm him up, and we'll have a good laugh, and then I'll move to Locksley and bake my bread, and cakes for your babies, and he'll…he'll marry a rich widow or something and lord it over the rest of us and make us call him Sir Allan. He'll be all right. He will."

She sounded so sure it cheered Robin up somewhat. He'd remember it, later, and remember how Allan had originally thought Winifred was a witch. No, she wasn't a witch. A seer? Maybe. But one of those that gets it _almost_, but not completely, right; whose prophecies come somewhat, but not entirely, true.


	2. Chapter 2 The Prodigal Returns

**Title:** _The Prodigal_. Chapter 2, "The Prodigal Returns"

**Author:** DCWash

**Characters:** Robin, Little John, Marian, Will, Djaq, Allan.

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** Hmmm. PG, maybe? A couple of iffy words here and there.

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 4284

**Summary: **The next part of my Allan saga, of which "Ghost Town" was the first part, and which doesn't have an over-arching title yet. Vasey's out as sheriff and peace has returned to Nottingham…except, perhaps, for one particular wayward outlaw. How do you solve a problem like Allan?

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The problem with being the center of the universe is that, if anything does go wrong, it must be because of something you've done.

Robin kept telling himself that it couldn't be; even Winifred had said it, out loud, the last time he saw her: "Whatever is going on with that boy is _not your fault!_" But then she had added, "Not directly, at any rate." The two clauses kept battling it out in his mind. _Allan got himself into this mess, and I am not to blame,_ he'd tell himself. And he'd believe it. Until the little voice would sneak up from behind and say, "Yes, you are."

The whispering in Locksley (as opposed to Robin's head) started maybe a couple of weeks after Robin handed Winifred the deed to her land. But "whispering" might not be the right word—what it was, was a vague feeling floating about Locksley that something exciting, or scandalous, had happened; that something big was going on. Robin tried to find out what it was, but didn't have any luck. Oh, well. The same thing had happened a few times in recent months, and no sustained drama seemed to come of it. Robin was getting used to the idea that, just because you're lord and master of a village, that doesn't mean you can control or even know everything that's going on. That didn't mean he liked it, but, hey, if his people wanted to have their little secrets from him, he couldn't stop them.

Looking back, he would realize that the start of it coincided with Will Scarlet's absence from the building site near Locksley Manor. Robin had commissioned him to build a rather grand house—"think of it as suitable for a village reeve," he had said—and one day Will just didn't show up. Robin noticed because Will was such a good worker, not only in the sense that he was skilled and talented but in the sense that he was conscientious about giving a day's work for a day's pay. Robin was sure Will had his reasons—maybe he was a little under the weather, or maybe it had to do with his land. But then he was absent the next day as well. Robin would have gotten concerned if it had gone on any longer, but by the third day, he spied Will hammering and sawing away and didn't think any more of it. Surely he had earned the right by now to a sick day every now and then.

Then, Winifred had missed her weekly rounds. She came to Locksley every Tuesday with her loaves, selling to women who calculated they would earn more money working at other things during the time they'd normally spend baking than they would spend on Winifred's bread. Yet nobody objected; it was like they had anticipated her absence. This time Robin was more concerned, because he worried about frail, elderly Winifred, all alone in Featherstone, more than he worried about hale and hearty young Will Scarlet, just out of general purposes. He'd ask John about it. He had business with John anyway.

John had finally come out of the forest, at least for a bit now that the weather had turned, and Robin found him in his cottage, which looked so small now that it was inhabited by such a large man. John, rather awkwardly, played host and they sat by the fire on the only two stools in the place, ignoring the unmade pallet on the floor in the corner, while Robin outlined his idea for John's future.

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"….and you can take the pot of money and deal with it however you want. If you want to do all the work yourself and keep it all, that's fine; if you want to hire a whole gang of men to do the work while you sit with your feet up, that's fine to. Or you might do something in between. And how you arrange it can change over time. All I care is that the work gets done. _How_ it gets done is up to you."

John nodded. He rather liked this idea of Robin's. He had expected Robin to give him a small plot of land, perhaps the one he had farmed as a tenant before he had been outlawed. After all, that's what Robin did with Will: officially gave him his freedom, and, more recently, free title to the land Dan had worked as a serf while at the same time making his own money as a carpenter. But John hadn't exactly been looking forward to that—his old allotment was small, and poor, and he had never really enjoyed farming, and, after all, if he had been able to make a real living off of it, he wouldn't have been outlawed in the first place, would he? But this "under-forester" idea…that was more appealing. He'd still have to answer, ultimately, to Robin, of course, but on a day-to-day basis he'd be his own boss and maybe the boss of others. He'd get to spend his days in the woods that he loved. And he'd get a snazzy title and a nice, steady income for the rest of his days. Altogether, it sounded like a good deal.

"…now, there is what Winifred called, 'the law enforcement aspect' of it…."

John nodded. He could remember Winifred's father chasing him down the road when he was a youngster…and catching him. Both of them thought John had killed a deer. Both of them were wrong—he had missed. Harold gave John a tongue-lashing to end all tongue-lashings, and told his father, who had his own manner of dealing with things, but Harold hadn't taken it any further than that, which was fair of him and a lot more than other game keepers would have done. John wasn't sure in his own mind what he thought of poaching laws, in general, but did think there were worse examples to follow as a gamekeeper than Harold's.

He nodded again. Robin found this encouraging, knowing how little John Little would speak under the best of circumstances. A thoughtful nod like that meant he was taking the idea seriously.

"…the law, officially, says nobody but the king and his representatives—that would be me, and you if you take the job—can kill any game, of any size, at any time, within a royal forest, and the 'royal forest' can be anything he decides it to be. In Sherwood's case, that means not just the woodland, but Locksley, Feathersone, Clune, Nettleston—basically, this whole quarter of the county. The law also says farmers can't do anything that might interfere with the king's hunting pleasure, like hedge off their fields to keep the deer out. Now, I think that's outrageous and have lodged a protest, but I doubt if anything's going to come of it. In the mean time, I'm the magistrate and justice of the peace in the area, as well as the royal forester, which means I'm the one who interprets the king's law around here, and _I_ say farmers have every right to defend their property from marauders. If those marauders happen to be deer and rabbits, well…." Robin shrugged. And John nodded.

"…which isn't to say we can let everybody run willy-nilly through the woods, shooting anything and everything they want. After all, if the king orders up a hundred saddles of venison for his Christmas court, there'd better be enough deer around here for us to give him a hundred saddles of venison. Maybe we can keep the deer off-limits to hunting but let people put up wattle fences that they can take down when the king says he's coming to hunt. Or let people put rabbit snares all around their gardens but not go further afield than that with them. At any rate, we can work something out. And if the king doesn't like it, I'll be the one to take the blame" Robin stopped. John nodded.

"Look, why don't we head over to Featherstone now that the rain's stopped? Winifred probably has…."

"No!"

That was startling. _You'd think I'd proposed swimming back to Acre,_ Robin thought.

"John? Is something wrong? I noticed Winifred wasn't here yesterday. Maybe we should go check on her…."

"No, Winifred's fine. We just…shouldn't go, that's all." John looked uncomfortable. "We shouldn't bother her. With this."

Robin peered at John, trying to discern what was really going on. John looked even more uncomfortable. _(He'd told them he wasn't good at lying! He wasn't even good and leaving out part of the truth.)_

He squirmed, and blushed, and opened and closed his mouth, all while Robin fixed a steely gaze on him. Finally, he said—with an air of resignation that it had been forced out of him—"It's Allan. He's back. At Winifred's."

Now it was Robin's turn to nod.

"And why am I not to know this?"

"That's what he asked. But…" John shook his head." …it's not right. Not right at all."

Robin pondered this. It hurt that his friend didn't want to see him, but Allan was within his rights. It was curious, though.

Robin's silence encouraged John to talk. "He took a beating in Nottingham, apparently. A terrible beating. A milkman found him in a gutter just inside the walls and brought him to Winifred. Just about the only word's they got out of him was, 'Don't tell Robin. Please. Don't tell Robin.' Since then…." John just shook his head again.

"Did he say anything about what happened?"

"Not a word. Djaq reckons he doesn't remember. But even if he did, he hasn't been able to talk, at least not so's anybody can understand. Robin, it's bad." John sounded quite distressed. "I've never seen it this bad. That's why you ought to know, even if it goes against his wishes. In case…." A last shake of the head.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Of course, Robin went straight home and told Marian. Who looked grave at the news but didn't seem too shocked.

"Did you know this?" he said, accusation in his voice.

"Know? No. But I suspected something was up. You know how it is—you overhear things here and there, and you try to piece it together. It makes sense now that you've told me."

"Well, I've got to find out who did this, and bring them to justice." Robin was pacing, not knowing what to do with himself. He was furious—at whoever beat Allan, at Allan himself, at the entire village for keeping it from him—but also scared, and worried, and hurt. Riding to Nottingham to hunt down the perpetrators would at least be taking some action.

"Robin, wait. Think. Maybe that's why he didn't want you to know—he was afraid you'd go off on some vigilante…_quest_…."

"It's not vigilantism if they did it!"

"_But you can't do that any more!_" Marian took a deep breath, trying to stay calm and not fly off the handle like Robin was doing. "You always used to say you were fighting to restore the rule of law. Well, you won. Vasey's gone, Robin. There's a new sheriff, and Nottingham has a new mayor. And from all accounts, Byron and Hugh are decent men who take their jobs seriously. You need to trust them to do this part of their job, as well. You can't go up there and start raging around and making demands, or meting out your own punishments. Nottingham is _their town,_ Robin, not yours, and you have to work _with_ them, and within normal channels. You're not an outlaw anymore."

Robin stopped his pacing and said, quietly, "Allan's my man, Marian. I have to look out for him. I have to…." _I have to…what?_ he thought. _We're not in a gang any more._ "I have to…do something," he ended, miserably. "Who would I be if I didn't?"

Marian thought he looked lost. She put his arms around him. She was scared and worried too—after all, Allan was her friend as well as Robin's; in some ways, perhaps they were even closer. The thought of him dying, now, like this…. "Marian," Robin plaintively said into her hair, "Why doesn't he want me to help him?"_ For the same reason you wouldn't want him to--because it hurts too much to need like that,_ she wanted to say. Instead, she just squeezed him tighter.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Robin did ride to Nottingham, but not until Marian had soothed him and petted him and made him see reason. He went to Byron of Newstead, the nobleman named sheriff in Vasey's place, and to Hugh de Raymond, the new mayor, and put the matter before them as he should—that one of his lieutenants, a hero of the siege of Nottingham that ousted Vasey, had been most cruelly attacked within the walls of their city, and the offenders were still at large. They seemed to take the matter seriously. That didn't keep him from pursuing his own inquiries, but that's all they were: inquiries. He asked around until he found where Allan had been that night, and then he asked more questions about who was there at the same time, and what had happened. He didn't find much in the way of answers. What he did find, though, was the same unsettled atmosphere he had felt earlier in Locksley. Something was going on; there was an undercurrent he didn't like and that seemed to be keeping people's mouths shut. But, as Marian had said, Nottingham wasn't his town. Robin ate at a tavern owned by a friend of Allan's who had helped them with intelligence before and during the siege, and apprised him of the situation. He then went upstairs to an unsettled sleep, unable to do any more.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Robin didn't go straight home from Nottingham the next day. He knew Marian would be in Knighton by the time he got there, making her rounds, checking on her people, and he needed to talk. So Robin didn't stop at the manor house but instead proceeded to Will's building site. There wasn't any activity to speak of, but that didn't surprise him—it had been too wet over the past couple of days for daubing and mortar and plaster to dry, so there wasn't much point in putting any up. But he saw a curl of smoke coming from the shed behind the house. Will was there, working on furniture and burning the scraps to keep warm. There were dark circles under his eyes.

"How's it going?"

Will nodded. "I think we may have gone as far as we can with the house until spring." He squinted and ran a finger down the furniture leg he was working on…because looking perfect wasn't good enough; it had to feel perfect, too. "So I thought I'd get started on things to fill it."

"That going to be a bench?"

"Yeah. You said they lost 'everything,' right? These kinsmen of yours?" Will glanced at Robin to check he was headed in the right direction. "So I thought, table, benches: get started with the basics." He was addressing the wood again by this point.

"Will, I know about Allan."

That caught Will up short. "How?"

"I shook it out of John. Will," Robin sighed, "You should have told me! Why didn't you tell me?"

"He asked us not to—begged us. And at the time we thought it might be a dying man's last request."

"That's why you were gone last week, weren't you? You were helping Djaq with Allan. Sitting vigil, by his side. You, and John, and probably Much and even Marian for all I know! Didn't it occur to anybody that I might want to be there as well? I'm his friend too, Will!"

Will slammed down the wood. "No, you're not! You're not his friend! I don't know what you are, but you're not his friend."

"_What?_"

"You're his…captain. Or his master. Or even some…_idol_ of some sort that he has to appease and live up to. But you're not his friend. Friends at least talk with each other. You don't even do that with Allan."

"I talk with him all the time!"

"Hah! Five years in the forest and I don't think you two have ever had a real conversation! You'd only give him orders! Still do, like he's one of 'your men'! Or advice he hasn't asked for. And then you nod when he's done what you've told him to do or yell at him when he messes up. Jesus Christ, and then you wonder why.... Do you even know where he's from?"

"Rochdale!"

"Hah!" Will tossed his head and picked up his wood again.

"Alright, where _is_ he from, then?"

"Somewhere…south of Rochdale," Will muttered, turning back to the wood.

"'Somewhere south of Rochdale.' What, did he tell you that when you two had one of your heart-to-hearts? Where he sat you down and told you the life story of the life of poor Allan a Dale?

"No! I just…I listened to him. That's what you do with friends. When you're out picking gooseberries or something, and you're talking about…I dunno…girls or stuff, you listen to what they're really saying underneath it, as well as what they're saying on the surface."

"And you're saying I never did that with Allan?"

"I don't know, Robin! When could you? You never did things like pick gooseberries; you always ordered _us_ to do it instead, while you worked on some big scheme!"

Will pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. He sighed, "I'm sorry, Robin. It's just…. I was up all night, holding him down while Djaq cut a hole in his skull."

Robin recoiled. "Trepanning. It's that bad?"

Will nodded. "I suppose so. Djaq said he might die if she did it, but that he _would_ die if he didn't. Something about pressure on his brain."

They both fell into silence, staring at the floor.

"What happened?" Robin eventually asked.

"What, last night?"

"No, to begin with. How did he even get here, anyway?"

"A farmer was coming back from delivering milk to the castle, before dawn. He was trying to pick his way back to the gates through the dark and just about ran over him. He asked Allan for his name, or his kin, and Allan moaned something about Featherstone and Winifred. The man was going back that way anyway, so he loaded him onto the back of his wagon. Apparently, Allan was out again by the time they got there and he's been wavering in and out ever since. Winifred rode in and got me because…" Will shrugged, and smiled a bit. "…well, I don't know _why_ they got me, really, except they wanted company. And in case they needed help manhandling him, I guess. But we haven't gotten anything out of him about what happened. Djaq says there's a good chance he won't remember, anyway."

Robin nodded. He had seen enough—and had had enough—traumatic injuries to know that was common.

"You said Winifred rode in to get you?" Will nodded.

"Galloped!"

"Well it must have been bad to have gotten her up on that horse of hers." Robin had said it to lighten the mood a bit. He saw a crinkle of a smile on Will's face.

"Can you imagine," Will replied. "You're some good Samaritan, taking this bleeding stranger cross country, praying he doesn't die on you…and you knock on this door, in the middle of nowhere, thinking some gray-haired old grandmother is going to open it….and there's Winifred and Djaq pointing their swords at you?" That image lightened things up even more, getting more than a crinkle of a smile from them both.

"So, Will. What did you learn about our friend Allan on those gooseberry hunts? Besides that he's from someplace south of Rochdale."

"Well, his father's a blacksmith. And he's none too fond of his father, I can tell you that. I don't know why, exactly, except that I got the feeling he didn't treat him well—he always seemed so surprised when I'd say good things about my dad. And it bothered him more than he let on when Tom died. You don't have a little brother, do you?" Robin shook his head. "So you don't know how you're always looking after 'em, even when you're not. It was like…like he kept worrying about Tom, even after Tom had hung; like he kept trying to come up with a way for it to have all turned out different. And I don't know if Allan's an orphan, or ran away, or what, but if he's done even half the things he he's talked about, then he's been on his own for a long time. He's not that old, you know? I don't see how he could have crammed it all in if he hadn't left home young."

Will looked thoughtful. "And he's lonely. And he's desperate for somebody to love him, and he desperately wants to matter, to be needed: he's like you that way. And he's terrified—absolutely _terrified_—of dying, more than anybody I've ever seen. Or he was. Until lately. Lately, he hasn't cared enough to be scared. Ever since the siege, he's been so…sad. Really sad, under the jokes and all."

Will paused while his brain worked to articulate a new idea. Then:

"You know how we used to lie there in the dark and talk about how good things used to be, before Vasey became sheriff, and Guy took over Locksley, and how we were going to make them like that again, or maybe make them better? Did you notice he never said anything? Maybe…maybe thing's _weren't_ better for him before. Maybe things were as good as they ever had been, right there in the forest. And now that that's over…."

"You're talking about Allan as if he's dead!"

Will and Robin swung around, startled. They hadn't heard Djaq come in. But the sight of her scared them in another way. If she were here, and not at Allan's side….

"Don't worry; he's not. I just had to get out." She looked even more tired than Will. He put his arm around her shoulders and she nestled her head against his and closed her eyes, looking like she was trying to go to sleep standing up, using Will as a prop.

"Robin knows."

"Of course Robin knows. He's a smart man."

"I don't suppose there's any point of asking how he's doing?" Robin asked.

"Actually, he's doing better. _Much_ better. His breathing's better and there haven't been any more convulsions. He opened his eyes for a little bit and seemed to recognize us."

"My God!" said Robin.

"Yes, Robin, it's that bad," she said. "A skull fracture, broken collar bone, internal injuries…I can't say what's going to happen with his right eye. He's a long way from out of the woods. There are still more things that can go wrong than right."

"I went to Nottingham yesterday to tell the sheriff. While I was there, I asked around a little. It seems Allan was at a tavern in the Norman quarter that night and didn't like the way a group of men were treating a barmaid. He stepped in; words were exchanged…."

"….and they beat the shit out of him," Will said, grimly.

"…and Allan was thrown out of the tavern," Robin corrected. "That was fairly early, and the men stayed on. Allan wasn't found until almost dawn. I suppose they could have caught up with him later, but that doesn't seem likely. If they're drinking and carrying on, wouldn't they have been more likely to have gone after him right then instead of holding a grudge and setting on him later?"

"It fits with the injuries, though," Djaq said. "He's one massive bruise, inside and out. One person couldn't have done all that. It looks like he was kicked, a lot, or beaten with a stick or something like John's quarterstaff. It's lots of small wounds, one on top of another. And if he was in Nottingham, particularly in the Norman quarter…." She shook her head.

"What to you mean?" Robin said.

"The long knives are out, Robin. I've seen this before. The old regime's out and the new one's settled in, so now people have caught their breath and it's time to settle scores. Allan's well known in Nottingham, both as your man and as Gisbourne's, so both sides have a grievance against him." Djaq sighed. "I wish the sheriff luck, but I doubt if anybody will tell him anything. 'Who? Allan a Dale? Never heard of him! I was tucked up in bed, saying my prayers that night. I didn't see a thing.'" She rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively.

Robin had learned all he could from Will and Djaq, and told them all he knew himself, but he doubted in Marian was home yet and he didn't want to leave the comfort of his friends. Djaq, leaning into Will, had closed her eyes again.

"So Will says Allan and I are alike," Robin said.

"Oh, please!" Djaq gave that wave again but didn't move otherwise, including to open her eyes. "Twins. You could be twins."

"Then would it be all right if I were to visit my twin on his sickbed?" Robin asked, carefully.

Djaq broke away from the comfort of Will's shoulder. She stood up straight and looked, piercingly, at Robin, as if she was giving a full evaluation of his qualities. Then she made a curt nod. "Yes. But wait a couple of days. Give him a little more time to heal. And to come to his senses."


	3. Chapter 3, Working Lad part 1

**Title:** _The Prodigal_, Chapter 3, "Working Lad," part 1

**Author:** DCWash

**Characters:** Robin, Little John, Marian, Will, Djaq, Allan.

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** Hmmm. PG, maybe? A couple of iffy words here and there.

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 4284

**Summary:** The next part of my Allan saga, of which "Ghost Town" was the first part, and which doesn't have an over-arching title yet. (Maybe "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Allan?") Vasey's out as sheriff and peace has returned to Nottingham…except, perhaps, for one particular wayward outlaw. Who looks like he may need more help than Robin can give him.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

In days past, when Robin dreamed about life as the lord of Locksley, he dreamed of spending every moment of that life with Marian. And that's pretty much how things had turned out. They were partners in all things—Robin's trip to Nottingham and Marian's recent excursion to Knighton were unusual in that each of them went solo, unaccompanied by the other. There was a practical reason for this. Robin had a mighty respect for Marian's ability to manage an estate and trusted her far more than he would any steward. But to properly run things when Robin was absent, she had to know the details of what was what when Robin was there; it was easier to include her from the start than to try to backtrack to fill her in, especially since Robin relied so much on her judgment when final decisions had to be made. Recently, however, Robin had begun to chafe from so much togetherness. It made him uneasy to admit—_If the bloom of love has faded so much after only six months, what would it be like in six years?_—and he was made even more uneasy when Marian accepted with an unsettling alacrity the idea that he might, on occasion, go to Bonchurch to visit Much without her. Of course, it never occurred to Robin that spending most hours of most days together might make Marian chafe a bit, too.

At any rate, they had settled down into a routine that seemed to suit them all. About once a week, Robin would go to Bonchurch with no particular business in mind. He and Much would eat dinner and drink beer and reminisce and rehash, and if it got too late, Robin would sleep over. If Robin happened upon Will along the way, he often brought him along, and, as John made camp in a part of the forest closer to Bonchurch than Locksley, it was often convenient for him to join them as well. Much wouldn't trade Bonchurch Lodge for the world, but he did get rather lonely living as lord of the manor in such a large dwelling after living cheek-by-jowl with the other gang members so long, and he welcomed their visits, though he did sometimes wonder if, maybe, someone else might host these boys' nights out on occasion. As for Marian…well, Robin worried about how she got on without him on those nights, but recognized that she somehow managed.

Maybe it was because they were living more individual lives now than before, or maybe it was because owning Bonchurch had made Much downright wealthy and so more of Robin's social peer, but their relationship had, almost unnoticed, become much more equitable. It helped that Much was already proving a great success as a farmer. Robin had resolved from the beginning to not interfere with Much's plans for Bonchurch, and had managed to keep his tongue when Much took the radical step—_too_ radical, even in Robin's eyes—of immediately freeing all his serfs as soon as he gained possession. But Much had negotiated rent and wage terms with all of those same serfs which seemed to be working out well. He had a good crop of winter wheat in the offing, had cash in hand, and was now thinking of adding a mill to the estate. Altogether, he was happy as a pig in slops, which, seeing as how they were standing right next to the Bonchurch sties, examining the inhabitants, Robin could tell meant Much was very happy indeed.

"The thing is, I could operate it myself. I wouldn't have to hire a miller. But it must cost a fortune to build! Do you have any idea?"

"None whatsoever," said Robin, who was wondering why Much's pigs were so much better natured than his own. _My pigman walks with a permanent limp because of my brutes, and here's Much's snuffling out of his hand!_

"You don't? Oh, I hoped you did. Getting the stones, dressing the stones…the building can't be just any slap-dash cottage, you know; you've got to get it framed up strong enough to support the millworks…" Much said as he scratched behind a pregnant sow's ear. He sighed, "I dunno. Maybe it won't be worth it."

"Oh, by the way, is it okay if I stay the night?" Marian had finally gotten Robin to start asking, instead of just assuming these sorts of things. "I have to go to Featherstone to look after Allan first thing in the morning, and it's a shorter ride there from here than it is from Locksley."

"Allan's back?"

"You haven't heard? I thought all of Locksley knew by now. He apparently got knocked around pretty badly up in Nottingham. He's at Winifred's. She and Djaq are looking after him."

"What happened?"

"Don't know. Maybe a fight over girl. Or maybe something else. Djaq says 'the long knives' are out in Nottingham, that people are settling accounts left over from Vasey's day. I suppose he might have gotten caught up in something like that."

Much nodded. "When I was up there Thursday evening, I saw a crowd marching a girl down the street, jeering at her. It looked like she had cut her hair. I asked around and people said they do that to girls now who had a been a little too friendly with Vasey and Gisbourne's people--hold them down and cut their hair to shame them." He shook his head. "It seemed all wrong. I wanted to do something, but…." He looked troubled. "…but what? I couldn't make her hair grow back. I was the only one it seemed to bother. I tried arguing with people about it, but…well, there was about fifty of them and only one of me." He ducked his eyes, a little ashamed, Robin thought, but Robin sympathized. What _could_ Much have done?

"Thursday. That's probably when Allan got it. Did you hear anything?"

"Not a thing! I didn't even hear that he was there." Much appeared shocked, not just at the fact of Allan's condition, but at the thought that he was there when it happened and hadn't come to his aid.

Robin nodded. "Thursday. You know that moves you to the top of my list of suspects, don't you?"

Robin was obviously teasing, but after all these years, Much still hadn't figured out how to tease back.

"_What?_"

"Means: you're a big guy, taller than Allan, and Djaq says he was apparently off-his-ass drunk. Motive: you two have never gotten on. Opportunity…"

"I was in Nottingham to…to…to see a man about a horse!" Much blushed a little. "I'm there most Thursdays."

"You go to Nottingham most Thursdays to see a man about a horse," Robin said, but he thought, _Aha, Much! I found you out, you old dog, you! That pretty young widow you met during the siege, right?_ "At night. Because that's the best time to…gauge horseflesh. Or…go for a ride." At that point Robin dissolved into sniggers.

Much's expression made his confession for him, but he wasn't going to give up. _A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, _he thought_. And besides, my business is my own now._ But he said, "Half of Locksley was in Nottingham that night!"

Which, upon later reflection, Robin found rather peculiar.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Robin had arranged with Winifred to sit with Allan while she took her bread to the nearby settlements, and thought he had left impressively early the next day, but arrived to find her already packing loves into saddlebags. She seemed positively giddy to see him.

"La! I'm that glad to get away from here!"

"Has he been giving you trouble?" They were in one of the animal stalls off the main room of the house, speaking in low voices so as not to arouse Allan.

"Can't say that he's been awake enough to give any trouble. No, it'll just be nice to get out and feel the wind on my face again."

Allan made a little moan, causing both Winifred and Robin to look in his direction. He couldn't see much of Allan, who was tucked in Winifred's alcove bed, with a curtain drawn across it. Every now and then there was a movement, or another moan. He had been making these noises in his sleep since Robin had gotten there, and Robin found it rather disconcerting.

"He does that. I suppose it's normal." Winifred said. "The medicine's strong enough to make him sleep through the pain, but it's starting to wear off and the pain's starting to break through, so that's what you get. It means he's going to wake up shortly. Which is good—there's only so much rest he needs. In fact, if he doesn't wake up on his own pretty soon, you'll need to figure out a way to do it for him. But gently! And when he does wake up, no matter how gentle you are, he'll be a mess—all confused and panicky—though that goes away pretty quickly. Do your best not to let him thrash around—we don't want him ripping up stitches and separating bones now that Djaq's got them set. Watch his eye especially. He forgets he's got a bandage over it and he may wake up thinking he's gone blind."

She moved to lift the pack saddle onto the back of her horse, but Robin was able to get it ahead of her this time. "The main thing you need to do, though, is get some food in him. Just about all he's done has been to sleep, which is good in one way but bad in another, because he's sleeping so much he's not eating and not getting the nourishment he needs to heal right. I've got some beef broth keeping warm by the fire. If he takes that with one of those small loaves that should do. I doubt if he'll want to brave using a spoon, but if he does, don't let him—he has trouble with distances and getting the spoon to his mouth right, what with his eye and all, and I'd rather he didn't spill it all over the bedclothes. Have him drink it instead. Unless you want to spoon-feed him yourself." Robin emphatically shook his head. The last thing he wanted to do was to try to, literally, _feed_ Allan.

"There's some carrots at the bottom of the pot. It would be even better if you could get him to eat those, but they might not be soft enough. Somehow, through the grace of God, he didn't lose any teeth in this thing," Winifred explained, "but chewing can rattle his bones enough that it still hurts. Let's see, what else?"

Winifred, hand on hip, looked around the room. "There's butter over there on the shelf, if he wants it on his bread….He'll probably need to make water when he wakes up, and you'll need to help him. He _hates_ it when Djaq or I do that, but he may be better with you. The piss-pot is there in the corner….The window—when the sun's at the right height, it can shine right into his eyes there on the bed. It's fine for it to be open, in fact it may be better to get some fresh air in here and let the humors out, but be aware that you may need to adjust it….Keep a watch out for fever, just in case….Oh, and the medicine! You need to take a handful of the poppy seed and some of the elm bark, but not too much, and….oh, here, this will be easier…." And with that Winifred darted into the main room and started blending herbs in a pot.

Robin followed her, more slowly. Allan shifted again, and whimpered. Robin could now see his form behind the curtain, and a brown hand hanging down. Both he and Winifred cast a watchful eye Allan's way.

Winifred's gaze broke away first and returned to her work. Winifred shook her head, and looked doubtful. "He…sees things, when he's like that. Kind of like fever dreams, but not. What with that and the way he's so agitated and confused when he wakes up…." Winifred sighed. "…I half wonder if, when Djaq drilled that hole in his head to let the demons out, one got stuck behind and she's going to have to do it again to set it free. Now here's this, ready to go." Winifred handed Robin a small clay pot. "Fill it up to about here with boiling water and let it set for about ten minutes. Then strain it and have him drink it down. But mind! Not until _after_ he's eaten! For one thing, it's kind of hard on his stomach and it'll help if he's got some food in it. For another, it'll knock him right back out again, and if you dose him when he wakes up he'll never stay awake long enough to eat. Djaq's a little worried about him getting too used to the medicine, so don't give it to him automatically—wait to see if he needs it. He _will_ need it, and there's no point in making him suffer, but…." Winifred waved her hand at the ways of doctors and medicine, as if to say, "I do what Djaq says, but I'll be damned if I know why."

She looked around the room again, making a final check to be sure everything was in order, and then walked over to Allan. She drew the curtain aside and placed her fingers on his forehead. Robin thought at first that she was checking for fever, as she said, but then noticed her lips were moving and her eyes were closed. She was whispering some kind of prayer, or blessing, or maybe even a charm. That done, she turned, waved at Robin, and led off her laden horse.

Robin felt very alone. He had thought this little jaunt of his would be akin to babysitting, that he'd have a nice, friendly visit with Allan or maybe sit with him while he slept, but it was beginning to sound more like real nursing, and he wasn't sure if he was up to the task. He found himself afraid to look at Allan—the situation reminded him of one of the nightmares of his childhood where he knew there was something horrible behind a curtain and dreaded what he would find if he pulled it back, but still felt himself drawn to it. So Robin opened the window, and fiddled with it until the light entered the room just so, and poked the fire, and generally twittered about until he ran out of things to twitter with. He inspected the contents of the medicine pot Winifred had prepared—not that he knew much about it, but his own experience with opium in the Holy Land made him wonder if all those poppy seeds, rather than demons, might be the cause of Allan's dreams. Eventually he went to the alcove and pulled the curtain all the way back, reasoning that exposing Allan to more light would be the gentlest way to wake him up.

Though it wasn't quite the stuff of nightmares, Robin was appalled at what he saw. Only the right side of Allan's face was visible; the most of the rest, including his left eye, was under bandages. More bandages seemed to tie his skull together. Djaq had shaved Allan's head when she did the trepanning; at the same time, his face, usually so neatly barbered, was covered in reddish bristles. The blankets were drawn up to his neck so Robin couldn't see much below Allan's chin, but what he did see was bruised and swollen. His hand was dangling off the bed. Robin noticed a couple of the fingers were splinted, which he hoped meant Allan got in a couple of licks in self-defense when this thing went down. Not knowing what else to do, Robin lifted the twitching hand and placed it back on the bed.

That motion was apparently the straw that broke the camel of sleep's back, so to speak. Allan shuddered, and breathed hard, like he was being forced into something he didn't want to do, blinked a couple of times, and opened his eyes for real. But he obviously was bewildered as to where he was, and when his eyes lighted on Robin, his face filled with terror.

"God! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Allan scrabbled to sit up and bent his head and threw his arms up in front of his face, as if to protect it. Robin noticed bruises on his forearms. Allan was breathing hard, and it obviously hurt, but it was as if he was trying to back out through the alcove wall. "Robin, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" he wimpered.

This must be what Winifred had alluded to, but Robin was shocked and dismayed at how personal it was—that Allan was so afraid of _him,_ specifically, and so abject. Robin had no idea how to approach it, but he knew he needed to get Allan calmed down.

He took him by the shoulders and felt him trembling. "Allan," he said, "It's all right. Shhh. Shhhh." Robin tried to sound both authoritative and soothing. "It's over now. Nobody's going to hurt you. Shhhh. That's it. Shhhhhh." Still gripping Allan's bare shoulders, Robin repeatedly stroked them with his thumbs. _Petting him. Like when my horse gets spooked,_ Robin thought, with some black humor, to cover his own fear. But, just as it worked for the horse, it seemed to work for the man. Allan's breathing got easier and Robin felt the trembling fade, though not stop. After a few seconds he brought his arms down and looked at Robin again, this time more confused than afraid, though there was still a touch of wariness about his expression.

Robin let go and eased himself back. "Good God, man! What were you dreaming that brought _that_ on?" he asked with a weak smile…and a great deal of relief.

Allan shook his head, obviously still foggy and confused, though maybe less so. "Dunno," he said. His voice was weak and his tongue was thick, and if he wasn't so sure about this speech thing. He looked around, slowly getting his bearings. He was breathing at a normal rate now, though it was still shallow. Robin reckoned that could be because of the broken ribs, though—he had had those before, and he knew how it made deep breaths painful.

But now that Allan was oriented, he seemed on the road to agitation again, looking around the room and the bed like something was missing.

"You okay? You need anything?"

"I…um…gotta pee." _Yeah, THAT'S what this feeling is. Now what do I do about it?_ was the closest Allan was getting to coherent thought still.

"Here," Robin said. He tried to be gentle, but there's only so gentle you can be when you're trying to convey a grown man of your own size out of bed and across a room. They made it to the pisspot in the corner, after a few stumbles. Robin had no idea how to go about "helping him make water," as Winifred had said, and after a few missteps ("I can handle my own willy, thank you") settled on standing behind Allan and serving as a prop to hold him upright. Allan managed to complete his business before groaning and collapsing back into Robin's arms, but barely, and Robin half carried, half dragged him back to the bed.

Allan sweated, and gritted his teeth, and closed his eyes, and, though he seemed to try not to, emitted a few small moans as Robin got him settled in. Once he was covered up, with a bolster and pillow propping him up, he took a few breaths, then looked at Robin again.

"So, it didn't occur to you to bring the pot to me, instead of me to the pot?" he said, weakly, but wryly.

Robin was so relieved to hear Allan not only speak, but to speak in that familiar tone of voice, that he burst out laughing and continued, far louder and longer than Allan's little dig warranted. "Honestly? No, it didn't. I'm sorry," he chuckled.

_And now what do I say?_ Robin thought. "So. How you doing?" he said. _Not that,_ he thought.

"Well, I've been better." Allan was picking at the bandage over his eye. Robin pulled his hand down to make him stop, reminding himself of his nurse when he had chicken pox as a boy.

"Do you remember anything about what happened?" Allan shook his head, eyes closed again. Keeping the one eye open when the other was bandaged down was obviously difficult for him.

"We'll find who did this. I promise."

Allan snorted and listlessly shook his head. He didn't believe Robin, or didn't care whether the perpetrator was caught or not. Robin wasn't sure which was worse. He thought he'd try again.

"We missed you at Christmas. Did you go back home to Rochdale?"

"What?"

"To Rochdale. For Christmas."

"Why would I go to Rochdale?"

"That's where you're from, isn't it?"

"I don't know that I've ever even been to Rochdale."

"I distinctly remember, the first time we met, you said you were from Rochdale, and not Locksley. 'Allan a _Dale_—Roch_dale_,' you said." Robin hadn't thought, even then, that Allan was really from Rochdale—nobody from that part of the country spoke the way Allan did. But he wanted to see what happened when Allan was called on it.

"I said that? Blimey. No. Sussex. I'm from down there. 'Allan a Crawley,'" Allan said, thoughtfully, as if trying it on for size. "Doesn't really have the same ring to it, does it?"

"Is that your home town?"

"Um, yeah. Except that it's not a town, really. Not even a village. More like a bunch of houses stuck on a manor."

"Does your father farm?"

"Naw. He's a blacksmith."

"That's a good trade. Did he teach you any of it?"

"Not hardly!" Allan seemed to find the thought amusing. "Robin, what's with all these questions?"

"Just making conversation." Robin could tell from Allan's glare that he didn't believe him. "Alright. Will's been giving me a hard time about how I don't really know you. And Winifred said I had to make sure you stayed awake long enough to eat. So I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity to get you talking. Kill two birds with one stone, as it were."

"You mean pepper me with questions. Damn! Five years in the forest and you don't ask me whit, and now that I can't get away from you, you decide to make up for lost time!"

Allan didn't sound happy. Resigned, maybe, but not happy. Robin, on the other hand, had a bit of evil in his smile as he turned to ladle up some soup. Needling Allan like this, even if the questions were in earnest…it could be fun!

Allan grimaced as he repositioned himself to take the soup from Robin, and picked up where he left off. "He wasn't that kind of blacksmith, really. They make iron down there—dig it up, smelt it, turn it into rods, ship it out. You know how a blacksmith takes a rod of iron and bends it and shapes it? He made those rods. Take the iron out of the smelter and bang it around to get it into some kind of shape for somebody else to make something proper out of. Well, sometimes the master would get an order for, like, a ton of horseshoes for the army, and he'd work on those, and every now and then he'd get some if his own orders—got an armor commission once—but, mostly, just bang out rods, one after another."

"Wow." Robin imagined wielding a hammer over a hot forge, hour after hour, day after day, just to churn out the same basic shape, over and over again, with no real chance for craftsmanship. "That sounds…awful."

"I hadn't really thought about it. Maybe that's why he was such a son of a bitch." Allan noticed Robin's shocked expression. Maybe Robin could stand to learn more about life on the other side. If the truth got under Robin's skin…well, perhaps there was some pleasure to be had from this little interrogation after all.

"Look, Robin. We don't all have dads like Will's. He used to take me hunting, and the guys who hung around the forge in the winter taught me how to roll dice, but that was about it. He'd come home, and he'd light into my mother, or she'd light into him, and they'd wake up the dogs and everyone else with their yelling, and I'd try to divert their attention, and Tom would cry or join in on the fight, and then Dad would take a pop at whoever was closest to hand and storm out. Then Mum got sick and had to quit work and I had to start, but at least I got out of the house a bit and got some peace."

"Your mother worked, too?"

"Yeah, up at the manor house, a couple of days a week."

"And you took her place up there?"

"Nah. The master decided I'd be more useful with the charcoal makers." He noticed Robin looked puzzled. _Jesus, don't they teach these northerners ANYTHING?_ "They use charcoal to run the smelters and the forges. Saves wood that way. In the winter they'd cut the trees in the forest, and in the summer, after it had dried, the charcoalers would have at it. They'd…" Allan tried to figure out how to explain it, making shapes with his hands, but gave up. "It's complicated. But part of it is, they'd make this huge mound out of logs, and they thought kids could climb over 'em better than adults on account of their size. So I did that for a while in the summers." Robin thought, _That doesn't sound right. I believe him, but he must have been awfully young, and for the lord of a manor to put kids to work that way? It doesn't sound right._ Allan must have noticed the look on his face. He shrugged, "Hey, like I said, it got me out of that house. I got to live outside in the woods while we did it, and hunt, so there was some adventure to it. There were other lads there, too." He shrugged again. "It could have been worse."

"And winters?"

"The rest of the year I was at home, same as regular."

"Why did you leave?"

Robin wasn't sure if it was from the food or from being given free rein to talk about himself, but it seemed to him that Allan was livelier than he had been. He shot Robin another glare as he dunked his bread into his soup—if he had to tell this story, he was going to do it _his_ way, and he didn't want to be interrupted.

"Things got worse, didn't they? Mum got sicker. Dad used to go to the tavern when he'd leave after their rows, but then he started going there straight after work and Mum'd have to send me to get him. He'd be having a fine old time and wouldn't want to leave, and to tell the truth, I didn't want to go back so much either." Allan smiled at the memory. "He used to show me off to his mates, have me play them at draughts and act all proud at how I could beat 'em. Then he'd stand everybody drinks and spend all the money we'd won, and some more on top of it."

The smile faded. "Then he left altogether."

"Left? What do you mean?" Robin asked.

"Left. Ran away. Went off and didn't come back." Allan looked at Robin as if he was daft.

"With your mother sick? Surely something else happened! Maybe he met with an accident or something."

"No-o." Allan sounded dubious. "We thought that, maybe. We asked around, but nobody had heard anything. Then the master sent some men around to our house, hunting for him, like he was a runaway." Allan shrugged. "We figured that meant he really _had_ run away. But we made up some story to keep him out of trouble, just in case." The smile was long gone.

"How did you get by after that? You and your mother and Tom?"

"Well, Tom and Mum were kind of taking care of each other by that point. She'd have these dizzy spells, and get all out of breath, and it got so she couldn't do much out of the house, so Tom did the gardening and the heavy work. Dad's wages always went straight through his fingers anyway, so there wasn't any great loss that way. We had a little land that he and Mum would work for wheat when they had time, and we lost it, but my charcoaling money paid the rent on the house well enough. And by then I was big enough to pull a bow proper, so I'd put meat on the table from poaching—we probably ate better than most of our neighbors because of that. And when Mum was asleep, sometimes we'd sneak out to the tavern. Tom needed the break from Mum and the house, but it'd gotten to where I could make some real money gaming, 'cause nobody would take a kid like me seriously. Sometimes somebody'd feel sorry for us and stand us supper, and sometimes Tom was able to lift back a bit when a punter's back was turned, but more often we'd sneak the scraps off somebody else's trencher before we gave up and went home. Or fell asleep under a table. Mum," Allan said, "Kind of turned her back to it. I think she thought she could use the coin."

He fell silent. Robin noticed his bowl was empty, and took it from him and refilled it with broth. Allan didn't seem to notice. He said, "Then she died."

Silence again, until Allan blinked back to the present and seemed to decide Robin needed more of an explanation. "I was….I dunno, _out_… setting snares, roving around, doing something. I came back, and there was Tom, all in hysterics. He had been out in the garden, and Mum was feeling poorly, and when he came back into the house she was dead. Just like that. Poor Tom didn't know what to do. He'd been sitting there with her for a couple of hours by the time I got home. He didn't want to leaver her alone to fetch a neighbor." He shrugged. "We got her buried the next day. In the churchyard, all proper. Maybe the most proper thing we'd ever done in Crawley."

Robin waited for more, but it didn't seem to be forthcoming. "Well?" he demanded.

"'Well' what?" Allan asked.

"_Then_ what happened? Who'd you go live with? Somebody took you in, didn't they?"

Allan did a pretty good job at playing innocent to the question, but the truth was, he knew how to tell a story, and knew the best way to gin up interest from a listener was to pretend you were going to stop before the ending.

Allan put on the wiseguy look Robin had often seen before. "Huh. Not hardly. We weren't exactly the most popular family in those parts."

"You didn't have any other relatives?"

"Not there, at least. Dad was from France, I think. Mum used to talk about her brother in Yorkshire, but…that was Yorkshire. We weren't even sure where Yorkshire was, or how she got to Sussex. So we hung around on our own for a while. But Tom, he kept thinking he was seeing ghosts…and maybe he did, I dunno. I was more worried about what the master would do with us when he realized nobody in the house was working. I was getting big enough that I thought they'd put me to work full time in the furnaces, and…God, that was the last thing I wanted to do. And we'd heard stories about them putting boys to work hauling carts in the mines, and didn't want that for Tom. So we left."

"Just like that?

"Nothing else for it, really."

"Where did you go?"

"Well, Dad used to talk about how great London was, and Tom kept nagging at me to try to find him, so we thought we'd head that way."

"How old were you at that point?"

"Oh," Allan screwed up his face as he did the calculation. "About 13? 14? Probably closer to 14. Hey, don't give me that look! Lot's of boys leave home at that age."

Allan was right, but Robin was shocked nonetheless. Lots of boys did leave home at about that age--to start apprenticeships under tight supervision. Robin himself had left home at 14, to live with one of his father's vassals to train to be a knight. But Sir Godfrey was a good-hearted man who understood boys and who taught him well and who made sure he washed behind his ears and who sent Robin home to the loving arms of his parents on holidays. Besides, he had Much with him. There was a big difference between that and hitting the road to a huge city, friendless, alone except for the little brother you're looking after.


	4. Chapter 4, Working Lad, part 2

**Title:** The Prodigal - Chapter 3 (Part 2), "Working Lad"

**Author:** dcwash

**Characters:** Robin, Allan, Tom.

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** This part gets into some darker territory, so I'm making it PG-13. It's more veiled than explicit, though, and it's not as bad as it's going to get.

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 5624. And yes, this is only the second part of ONE chapter. Three more chapters are anticipated. It's completely ridiculous.

**Summary: **Wrapping up Chapter 3, in which we find out how, exactly, the young orphan Allan a Dale got from London to Nottingham. It's probably best if you read the first part and then jump right into this—this part picks up immediately where the other one left off. Beware of angst, some sexual creepiness, and heartbreak. If you're not in tears by the end of it, I haven't done my job.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

"Have you ever been to London, Robin? Of course you have. How about this: Have you ever spend much time in London? It's…_amazing!_" Allan's face glowed at the memory. "Whole neighborhoods of nothing but rope makers or tinsmiths or butchers! And cookshops that are open all day and all night! And the people! _Thousands_ of 'em, from all over, speaking all these different languages!" He chuckled at the memory. "I didn't even know there still _were_Jews until I met a couple of goldsmiths in London, I was that dumb. Can you imagine what it was like for a couple of country boys like us on the loose in a place like that?"

_Will thinks you and I are alike? Well,_ _there's the difference between me and you, right there,_ Robin thought. _You think sending two poor orphans off on their own to London is like setting them loose in one big playground. I see them loose in one big deathtrap._

"How did you…well, how did you get by?" Robin, who had never lived in a city himself, was mystified at how the young Allan and Tom would supply even the most basic of necessities in London. After all, much of their survival in Crawley seemed to have come down to what they killed and grew themselves, and they wouldn't have access to a forest or a garden in London.

"Begging, to start. Tom really knew how to play the poor, pitiful little boy. I thought it was kind of embarrassing, to be honest, but Tom didn't mind. He said it was fun to pull one over on the toffs."

"But…" Robin started.

"But he _was_ a poor, pitiful little boy, I see that now!" Allan laughed, longer and harder than Robin thought was really warranted. "He wasn't pulling nothing over on nobody! But _then,_ well, we thought we were the sharpest pair in the world."

He continued, fondly: "You know how we started thieving? We needed clothes. Tom had learned how to patch and mend from looking after Mum, but we were so thick we didn't take into account that we might outgrow things. So we'd snatch things that looked like they might fit off of lines…" He laughed again. "…and leave behind what we were wearing, because it felt less like stealing and more like trading that way." His laugh turned into a wheezing cough, and he winced in response.

The picture Allan was painting made Robin smile. "How did you stay out of the stocks?"

"We didn't. Or at least, _I_ didn't—they let Tom off on account of his age. And probably let me off easier than otherwise because of mine. And then, we got better at it. Tom…man, he had the touch! I still haven't seen a better pickpocket or cutpurse. And I wasn't half bad myself."

"I don't suppose it occurred to you to try honest work?"

"Of course it did!" Allan said indignantly. "I'd get a job sweeping up a cookhouse and they'd let me sleep in their hay loft, or give us some pork pies, or something like that." He sighed, dramatically, and put his hand over his heart. "Got my first heartbreak that way. And my first sacking. There was this girl (woman, really; she was probably twice as old as I was) I was sweet on. Oh, I tagged after her all over the place, like a little puppy! She felt sorry for me or thought I was cute or something, and got me a job as kind of a porter where she worked. I was so lovesick it didn't occur to me that 'where she worked' might be a whorehouse—I mean, I knew about whores (I always wondered if that's where Dad's money went) but I didn't know there were such things as whole houses full of them pulling salaries. I thought it was a regular inn or something. So I'm there that first day, clearing up beer mugs, and I hear this guy getting fresh with my girl. Well, I couldn't have that, so I got in the way…and wound up out on my ear, tossed out by the girl herself. I thought I was being all gallant…"

Robin laughed, "And didn't I hear about you doing the same thing last week in Nottingham?"

"You'd think I'd have learned something by now!" Allan agreed, coughing again. He took a sip of broth. "But most people that were looking to hire boys weren't looking to take on two of 'em at once, and thieving—getting cash in hand—let us stay together more often. Besides," he smirked, "It was more fun. And gambling…well, I only cheated if I had to, so I guess you could call that 'honest work.'"

"How long were you there?"

"Not that long, now that I add it up…four or five months, I guess."

"Wow! I thought it would have been longer. It sounds like you two did pretty well in London."

"Yeah, well…there were a bunch of little things. There was this gang, they kept coming after us. Said we were in their territory. I'd never been much of a scrapper before, you know? Never really needed to be back in Crawley, and never saw the fun in starting fights myself. But…well, I learned a few things in taking care of myself with that bunch, let's put it that way. Things I didn't really want to learn, and I learned them the hard way. And then…." Allan paused, contemplating his bowl, as if he wasn't quite willing to meet Robin's eye but also as if he wanted to make sure he explained this bit quite correctly. "Tom…he had a way of kind of…latching on to older men. I guess it was because he missed Dad or something—he was always spying men in the crowd who he thought was Dad, and running after them, and always getting disappointed. Most of the time it was okay—maybe his feelings would get hurt when they told him to bugger off, but maybe they took him home for their wives to feed, too, you know? But he kept yammering on about this one man, and I noticed he had some new flash gear, and I put two and two together. So I spied on 'em, and sure enough, the man was…taking advantage of his position, you might say, with Tom." Allan grimaced, and Robin thought it better not to ask the details. "Well, I raised holy hell. I mean, you can imagine, I was that mad about it. But, if I'm being honest, I'll admit I thought that if I made enough fuss I'd get some money from the bloke, trying to get me to quiet down. But maybe I overdid it." Allan began to go a little pale, and look distressed. "I mean, he didn't really _hurt_ Tom, you know? Tom wasn't even that upset—I think he was more pissed at me than scared by the man. But apparently…well, folks in the neighborhood already had their suspicions about this guy. And when I started yelling, a crowd started gathering, and they grabbed him…." He closed his eyes. "Robin, I never knew people could do that to each other. That poor man.... Maybe he deserved something, but not that. Not that."

Allan's tone made Robin shiver.

After a moment, Allan pulled himself back together. "So, anyway, when we added it up, the bloom was off the rose of London, so to speak. And right about then, some of the apprentices were heading out of town to work the harvest—they picked up a little extra money each year that way. And it seemed like it might be a good way for us to clear out of town for a bit, till things cooled down. Of course, we'd never harvested anything in our lives, but it's not hard. Well, it _is_ hard—bending and cutting from dawn to dusk is hell on your back, even when you're that young—but it's not like it's some special skill or something. So I cut and Tom tied and we were following the harvest north before we even realized it. And once we _did_ realize it, we decided to put some purpose to it. We had that uncle in Yorkshire, and thought we might aim for him. God, that was as stupid as going to London!" Allan's mood seemed to be souring a bit.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, all we knew was Mum had a brother named James who was a thatcher in Yorkshire. That's it. Think about it: How many thatchers are there in Yorkshire? And how many of them might be named 'James'? And how big is Yorkshire? Hell, we didn't even know if he was still alive!"

"So the two of you walked all the way from London to Yorkshire?"

"More or less. I mean, we'd hitch rides when we could, and sometimes that took us some out of the way. We teamed up with a group of tumblers for a little while—God, _that_ was a disaster!"

"How long did it take?"

Allan shrugged. "I dunno. A few weeks, maybe? The main thing I remember was being hungry. People…well, country people don't exactly take kindly to strangers, as a rule. We'd usually get run off before we could scrape up much to eat. Sometimes they'd roust us out if they even found us sleeping in a haystack." Robin remembered what it was like to be fourteen. His own appetite was insatiable at that age, and he had hearty meals on a regular basis. He couldn't imagine what it would have been like to be fourteen and have to get by on whatever he could glean from the road.

"And of course, it got colder and wetter as we went. But, in a way, it got better, too. Maybe because we looked too much like a pair of drowned rats to seem like much of a threat. People would help us out, let us sleep in their barns. Oh, that's where 'Allan a Dale' came from!" Allan said, with some surprise. "Tom noticed how just about every place we went through had 'dale' in its name: Lonsdale, Stonesdale, Ravensdale, like that. So he joked that maybe we should be Tom and Allan of Crawleydale to make us fit in better. And, you know, it didn't seem to be such a bad idea, especially since I was pretty good at doing the local accent. But Crawleydale sounded too long, so we shortened it. And added the 'a' because we thought that sounded sophisticated or something. You know, French." He grinned his patented "a Dale" grin, and Robin smiled, too. It sounded very much like him.

"That sounds like Tom calling himself a thatcher when I met him."

"But that's real!" Allan's excitement was back, so suddenly that Robin wondered at it.

"Believe it or not, we actually found our uncle! It seemed like the most natural thing in the world at the time. Hey, do you have a spoon? So's I can eat these carrots?"

"Um, Winifred says a spoon's not allowed. She's afraid you'll make a mess."

Allan glowered. His emotions seemed all over the place, and Robin wondered if it might indicate he was running a fever. It reminded Robin to put the kettle on to boil so he could brew the medicine.

"So she'd rather I ate it with my fingers and wiped them all over the sheets?" He had a point. Robin got up and started rummaging around, looking for a spoon. Allan continued with his story.

"Yeah, we found our uncle, and moved in with him. And we helped him with his harvest, and when that was done, he'd take us thatching with him. But before long he said he couldn't afford to feed us both through the winter, and he only had enough work for one apprentice, so I'd have to leave, seeing as how I was the oldest and could look out for myself better." Giving up on the spoon, Allan poked at the carrots with his finger, as if that would solve the problem of how best to get them to his mouth.

Robin turned from his task. Allan was so nonchalant he how he described his uncle's treatment that Robin was rather shocked. But he supposed that by this point in the narrative, Allan was getting used to rejection.

Allan must have sensed Robin's reaction. "It sounds worse than it is. I mean, he didn't toss me out in the cold or anything. He went to the priest and told him the situation and the priest found me a position." He looked up with a grin. "In a convent"

"A _convent?_" Robin asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, I know—can you believe it? I worked in the stables. I was there…wow, I was there for going on two years. I think that's the longest I ever stayed with anybody, except you. They had a man there, kind of a handyman, who used to be a soldier, and they put him in charge of me. He taught me to use a sword. A good man," Allan said, thoughtfully. "That swordsmanship he taught me…it's really been useful over the years. He wasn't above giving me a smacking when I deserved it, but still…a good man."

"Do you still keep in touch?"

"Nah. He died a few years ago. But I used to look him up when I came back through the area." He chuckled. "You know how there's always one particular thing that lets you know you're really a grown up now? With me, it was him letting me buy him a pint. First he wouldn't let me drink at all if I was with him, then he wouldn't let me pay. I figured I had really made it when he let me be the one doing the standing. Seems he had heard I was running with you and that meant I had the brass!"

"Why'd you leave? I mean, it makes sense that you would, eventually, but…."

"Um, there was a little problem with a new novice."

"Allan!" Robin was teasing as much as reproaching.

"It wasn't _that_ bad! I mean, no vows were broken or anything. But let's just say it became obvious to all concerned that a convent might not be the best place for a young buck like me to be living. So they got me another job, in Lord Beauchamp's stables. That was the first time I had ever been in a big manor house like that; it was kind of cool. And then I went to work for…um…a friend of his…."

"In the stables again?"

"Ye-ah," Allan said with some hesitation. "Among other things." (Was he blushing? _This could be good_, Robin thought, stashing it away for later.) "Then she sent me on to another friend after a few months, and there was a mix-up, so to speak, and then I was out on my own again." Robin was sure the "mix-up" had to do with girls or thieving, or possibly both, but he let it lay.

"And I'll bet that was the last honest work you ever did."

"Now that's not fair!" Allan was perturbed but his energy also seemed to be flagging. "I worked! Odd jobs here and there in town, and I'd help with sowing and making hay and with the harvest when those rolled around. I used to go to check up on Tom at my uncle's and I'd always earn my keep when I was there. I never got to be a _great_ thatcher or anything, not enough to call myself one, but I got to where I could patch a roof all right. In fact, I did that I did that job for Winifred last summer." He nodded proudly to some newer straw in the roof at the farther end of the house. Robin noticed some telltale splash marks on the dirt floor beneath it, but they had had a particularly wet winter, and if the patch had outright failed it would have looked much worse.

"But once the harvest was in, what was left for me to do? It's not like anybody was hiring full-time farm hands. I mean, isn't that why you lot have serfs in the first place? So you can get all your work done without having to pay anybody wages? And it's not like I knew a trade, or anybody was likely to teach me one by that point. What else was I supposed to do with myself except for a little this-and-that?"

Allan snapped the words out, bitterly. Robin was rather shocked by his vehemence, and by being thought of as one of "you lot." After all, he was one of the good guys…wasn't he? But Allan's eyes—or eye, really—were closed and his face was screwed up with obvious discomfort. Robin gingerly laid his fingers on Allan's forehead.

"The _hell?_" Allan recoiled as much as he could with his head against the upright pillow.

"Winifred told me to keep an eye out for fever," Robin mumbled, snatching his hand back. "That's the only way I know to check."

"No, it's not fever. I don't know what it is. My mood's been crazy lately. Every little thing is…big. Things that should be just kind of funny, they're hilarious; I heard Winifred humming some song the other day, just one of those ballads about a girl getting her heart broke, and I burst out in tears. Now I'm barking at you." Allan kept his eyes closed and squirmed a bit, like he was trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable, and coughed. He was still breathing shallowly, like it hurt to do more.

"I tell you what. I'll put the Djaq's herbs on to brew. And while it does its thing, you finish up that soup. I'll give you a spoon," Robin said, like he was promising a little boy a treat if he stayed quiet in church. Allan caught the tone and returned a tight little smile.

"'A little this-and-that.' What does that mean?" Robin asked as he poured the boiling water into the pot.

"Oh, you know. Cards. Dice. A little house breaking. Pimping. Cutting purses. Whoring. Not too much outright banditry, you know? But…whatever. I had a sword and I knew how to use it, so sometimes people would hire me to kind of help them collect debts and things like that. Though you know me. I tended more towards _persuasion_ than _enforcing._"

Robin would have smiled at that if he hadn't been stopped by Allan's earlier words.

"Pimping? Allan…."

"Don't start, Robin, just…don't. I know what you're thinking, but there's a way to do these things." Allan attacked his carrots with the horn spoon, but as Winifred predicted, he had some trouble. "I mean, if a girl wants to freelance, and decides herselfshe needs some backup, well, what's so wrong with that?"

"And that's how you got into it?"

"Hand to heart! The first girl, she came to me. I knew her from around, and she started telling me about how she kept having johns run out without paying, or how they'd smack her around and take her money, or such as that, and the two of us looked at each other and thought, hey, how about giving them somebody to answer to besides this little chit of a girl? So that's how it went. I didn't never _make_ her do _any_thing, or lay a finger on her, or anything like that, and I didn't take too big a cut. And then after that…well, she had friends, and I got a good reputation amongst them for treating them fair." He picked a chunk of carrot up off the blanket. "It wasn't like I was snatching virgins out of their beds and selling them to the highest bidder or nothing."

But Robin had moved on to another part of Allan's list. "Whor…_whoring?_" he said, with some puzzlement. "You mean you were a…_rent boy?_ He hoped he didn't sound horrified.

Allan looked at him with a mix of amusement and frankness, as if daring Robin to make something of it. He had wondered if Robin would pick up on that part of his c.v., or notice that he had placed it in the "jobs" section instead of the "hobbies" section. Then he returned to his bowl. "What? With a face like mine, a boy can go far," he said, ironically.

"But…" Robin was honestly perplexed. He had been around a bit and fully understood that there was were any number of types of relations between men that were not exactly sanctioned by the Church—rumor had it that even King Richard and King Phillip had one. But he knew Allan, and had shared close quarter with him for years, and…. "I always thought you liked _girls!_" he blurted out.

Allan was tilting his bowl back to get the last drop and completely lost it at that remark. The dregs of the soup went flying—over the coverlet, onto the floor, onto Allan and onto Robin himself. Robin ducked down to mop up the mess, hoping the motion hid his embarrassment. Though he did see the humor in it as well. "Ah, shut up and eat your carrot!" he said, with a sheepish grin.

"Is that what the kids are calling it…." Robin was too busy with the spill to look at Allan, but he heard a lot of sputtering. Followed by coughing. And more coughing, and what sounded like choking. He looked up as saw Allan in a panic, unable to get his breath. Robin quickly bent over him.

"Allan! Allan! Look at me! Look at me. Deep breath, Allan!" Robin modeled a deep inhalation. "Slow. Like that. I know it hurts. Here, squeeze my hand if you need to." Allan did need to, but he also did as he was told, despite the pain. "That's it. In…..out…..one more….." It was coming easier now, and the panic was leaving. But Allan still looked scared, and kind of wounded, almost as if his feelings were hurt by his body's betrayal.

"What was _that?_" he said.

"You've been breathing so shallowly that you didn't have much air in your lungs to begin with. And then when you laughed and coughed, to shot what was there out, and your lungs went into spasms trying to get it back," Robin said. And added, "I think. At least, that's what it felt like when it happened to me. When I broke my ribs and my collarbone."

"What happened? You fall off a horse?"

"Yeah."

"And Much scraped you up and showed you that breathing trick?"

"Yeah," Robin laughed.

"Guess I should thank him, then," Allan said. The panic might be gone, but he still looked worried. "The thing is, it's not my ribs that hurt so much as my guts. Djaq says my spleen and my kidneys and all that, they're bruised. What does that mean? How do you heal bruised guts? I don't even know what a spleen is! And then, you saw what I was saying about the moods." Robin looked puzzled. "I mean, your little crack about the carrot wasn't _that_ funny." Robin would have laughed himself at that point except that he saw Allan was deadly serious. He was scared. Robin remembered what Will had said about Allan the other day: "He's terrified—absolutely _terrified_—of dying, more than anybody I've ever seen. Or he was. Until lately. Lately, he hasn't cared enough to be scared." Well, if he was scared again, maybe they were making some sort of progress.

"I tell you what. Give up on the carrot and I'll give you a cup of the medicine. (That's right, isn't it? A cup?) I suppose it's ready by now." Robin looked at the pot, dubiously. It would have to do.

Allan made a face, but took it. "This stuff tastes like shit, you know that, don't you?"

"I think Winifred has some honey around here somewhere."

"Nah. We tried that. All honey does is make it taste like sweet shit." He grimaced at the cup and, taking a deep (or deep-ish) breath, he gulped the cupful right down, obviously well-practiced at chugging drinks. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "There. That's the only thing for it."

Robin helped him settle back into the pillows.

"Look, I want to be clear about something," Allan said. "Girls. I _do_ like girls!" _He's so earnest!_ Robin thought. _Honestly, I don't care, one way or the other. I just thought I could see these things better._ "I mean, I _really_ like girls. It's just…any port in a storm, you know what I mean? Especially when it's a rich port that buys you nice clothes." He winked at Robin, which looked so comical coming out of that bandaged face that Robin had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. "And who says all those ports were male? Hmm?" Now he was just being self-satisfied.

"So how long did this go on? This 'this-and-that'?"

Allan shrugged. "Till I met you, I suppose. I got around doing it, too. Never saw much of the west country, but south in winter, north in summer. And Tom, well, when he left my uncle's, he found me and decided he liked that traveling life better than thatching. Not that he really finished his apprenticeship in the first place. So we teamed up, and a couple of mates joined us and we had our own proper gang. That's when we really took to highway robbery. You know how it is—it's easier when there's a bunch of you. But Tom…." Allan looked troubled. "Tom never knew where to draw the line. And there _is_ a line—like I said with pimping, there's a right way and a wrong way to go about these things. I mean, it's one thing to take a silver cup off a man when he's got three more to back it up; it's another thing entirely to take a man's pig when that's all he's got to feed his children over the winter. But Tom…Tom never saw that." The thought of amoral Tom obviously bothered Allan.

"What happened? You were alone when I met you."

"Well, we worked our way down here, and it was obvious times were harder here. People…people just didn't have enough. Taking from them didn't feel right, somehow. Robbing travelers, that was okay, because you could tell from a mile off who had the goodies and who didn't and you weren't taking actual food out of people's mouths, but otherwise…it just didn't feel right. So we fought over it. Lord, how we fought! And one day, in Nottingham, I woke up and they was all gone, as well as my sword and my purse, and my horse." Allan stared out the window across the room, as if he saw Tom leaving him all over again. "But they left me my bow. So I went back to where I started when I was a boy, poaching. Made some arrangements with some folks in Nottingham to keep them supplied with meat. You know my friend Henry, with the tavern? The one who helped us out with the siege? He was one. That's how we met. Poaching, and gambling. I figured neither of those hurt anybody who wasn't ready to be hurt, especially if I didn't cheat. And then I found you, and you know the rest."

"And since then?"

"Since then it's been the same old same old. Only, I don't seem to be as good at it as I was." Allan smiled a little sadly, and kept the stare up. His words also seemed to slur a bit. Robin thought maybe the medicine was kicking in.

"All that wandering, all that 'this-and-that'…did you ever find anybody, you know…special? Some girl who made you want to settle down?"

"Oh, I outgrew that a long time ago!"

"What? Outgrew falling in love?" That sounded terrible to Robin.

"Oh, no! I wish, but….no, I outgrew thinking that kind of life was in the cards for me. The girls I wanted to marry, well, they were kind of above my station, I think you'd say. And the girls that wanted to marry me really wanted to marry somebody I wasn't, if you know what I mean. Besides, what's the point in marrying if you can't support a wife and family? And how was I supposed to do that? Sign my life away, and my children's, just to get the use of a little piece of no-good land? Working myself and them to death to make some other man rich? No, thank you. I'd rather stay an outlaw." Some of the indignation remained, but it was being replaced by lethargy.

Allan stayed silent for a few moments as he stared out the window again. Then, a small, sad smile. "There was a girl, once. In York. Named Ellen. We were together for about a year, I guess, one way or the other. Everybody used to tease us—you know, Allan and Ellen. We both worked the streets, and I guess you could say I was her pimp, but it was more like partners. We got some good scams going: 'Oooh, vicar! He's caught us out! What'll we do? How can we make him keep quiet?' That kind of thing."

"Blackmail?"

Allan shrugged, still looking out the window. "Blackmail…I think of that as ongoing. These were one-time payment jobs." He wanted to differentiate—to stay on this side of the line.

"Anyway, it got to where we were making enough money to rent a room all of our own. If you could call it that—I guess it was a shed, really, tacked on to the back of a cookhouse. Barely big enough to fit in a bed." He was having trouble keeping his eyes open, but continued with the stare and continued with the small, sad, smile and dreamy, faraway voice. In was in another place than Winifred's cottage. "But it had its own door, and a big window, and kept warm from the cookhouse. And it was…it was _ours,_ you know? Nobody could come in unless we let them." A pause. "Some days, when it was rainy, and cold, we'd count out our money, and if we had enough, we'd stay at home and off the streets that day. And we'd get something from the cookhouse, and we'd lie in bed all day long, all warm and dry, just watching it rain outside. We'd talk about moving to the country and just…just pretend we were _normal_. Like regular people." Allan was slower to open his eyes when he blinked. When he did, Robin noticed dampness on the lashes.

"What happened?" Robin murmured. He was almost afraid to ask, but he wanted the story to play out.

Allan shrugged. "One of her regulars, he offered to set her up in her own house, make her his mistress. Of course, I couldn't be part of that. And I didn't want to stand in her way, keep her from having a better life, so…." He shrugged again, weakly, eyes closed for good now. _Of course not,_ Robin thought. _There's that line again, the one you don't cross._

Allan moved to settle down flat in the bed, and Robin moved to help him. Something had been nagging at him for a while now, pecking at the back of his brain, and he remembered what it was. "Allan. Your father. Did you ever find out what happened to your father?"

"Oh, he was in London. Yeah, one of those men Tom used to think was Dad? Really _was_ Dad. I followed him home to check it out, just in case. But…he had a new family. He didn't need us any more." Allan sighed with the start of sleep. "Course, I couldn't tell Tom that. I mean, he was just a little kid. It'd have broken his heart," he murmured.

Of all the things Allan had told him that day, this one hit Robin the hardest. "But _you_ were a little kid, too!" he wanted to say. Even if Allan wasn't already asleep, Robin couldn't ask him to elaborate—not on something like that. So Robin didn't really know for sure what happened between the son and the father, or what Allan's dad might have actually said. What he saw in his mind's eye, though, was a bedraggled young boy, standing in the street, watching the man who was his father give the love he deserved to somebody else. Robin wanted to sweep that boy into his arms and hold him as fiercely as Will Scarlet had held his own brother when they witnessed their father's death. But it wasn't a boy in the bed before him. It was a battle-scarred, world-weary man, trying to sleep through the pain. So Robin instead did the only thing he could. He placed his hand over Allan's, and kept it there, and sat vigil, and did his best to keep any demons who might be lurking at bay.


	5. Chapter 5, The Things We Need, part 1

**Title:** _The Prodigal_ - Chapter 4 (Part 1), "The Things We Need"

**Author:** dcwash

**Characters:** Robin, Marian, Allan, Guy, Djaq

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 3306.

**Summary: **So why did Allan go over to Guy in the first place? This chapter explores that question. In this section, Marian presents Robin with an unsettling theory. But first, some embroidery….

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

There had been a time—and it wasn't very long ago—when Marian of Knighton despised embroidery, and the women who did it. Life was too serious, England's situation too dire, to waste time with such frivolity. There were wrongs to be righted, hungry people to be fed, battles to be fought, and fretting about which shade of gold would work best against which shade of blue wasn't going to help get any of it done.

That was before the Maud and Thomas' baby died.

As Countess of Huntingdon, but more particularly as mistress of Knighton, Marian had kept close tabs on Maud's pregnancy. After all, hers would be the first baby born in Knighton since the ouster of Vasey, and indeed the first with Marian as the rightful lady of the estate, and Marian felt a certain responsibility to do right by the child, beyond what might normally be called for by a woman in her position. So when Marian heard Maud had been safely delivered of a little girl, she resolved to let things settle down for a couple of days before personally bringing a pewter spoon as a gift for the child. (It had taken a lot of thought to decide what would be a suitable and useful and generous gift…and one not so extravagant that it would cause problems if it set a precedent with Knighton's future babies.)

When she got to Maud and Thomas' cottage, she was surprised at the subdued atmosphere, even amongst the two older children. It was because the baby, Maud said, was ill and not likely to live very long; apparently she was born with a hole in her stomach that prevented her from digesting her food and which was impossible to repair. At least, that's what the midwife said, and it fit with what Maude herself had observed. The family was heartbroken but at the same time rather resigned—these things just happened sometimes.

Marian wasn't resigned in the least—she was aghast! Surely there was some mistake! After all, the midwife, while probably skilled enough at catching babies as they came out, was just a countrywoman and not properly trained in real medicine. She would send Djaq, the most learned and skilled physician in the area, to examine the baby and make things right. She, Marian, would pay any fees. So Djaq came, and saw the baby, and consulted the medical books she had brought back with her from Acre, and—being still a relative novice as neo-natal pediatrics—consulted with Matilda, and came to a different conclusion. The baby did not have a hole in her stomach…she had a hole in her intestine. Some food was being absorbed but the baby would certainly die, and die very soon.

Marian wracked her brain, trying to find cause for such a turn of events. For almost ten years now—for a goodly half of Marian's life—hunger had been so endemic amongst the peasantry of the area that she was used to blaming it, and by extension, Vasey, when children died. Was poverty ultimately still the root of the problem? Had she and Robin been less fair than they meant to be with their peasants? No, Djaq said. These things just happened sometimes. "We have gotten so used to the cruelties of man that we've forgotten how cruel nature can be," she gently told Marian. Children had probably died of similar birth defects under Vasey, but Marian had been so busy fighting and addressing the problems she could that she probably hadn't noticed. Well, surely there was something a doctor as skilled as Djaq could do? No, there wasn't anything anybody could do—repairs could only be performed surgically, but that was still in theory, since Djaq couldn't even imagine an infant surviving such an invasive procedure, whether the hole could be successfully sealed or not. And she was sure the baby would die? Yes, from either an infection or from, essentially, starvation.

All of this left Marian at a loss. After all, it was her duty in life to look after these people, to take care of them and protect them. So Marian kept doing everything she could to make life for Maud and Thomas and the baby easier. She had heard that if a nursing mother drank wine, the baby would be affected—might that help easy the child's distress? Djaq was dubious, but decided that a glass of wine a couple of times a day might ease_ Maude's_ distress and wouldn't do the baby any harm, so Marian sent over a firkin of claret. Marian called upon a nearby priest and arranged for him to baptize the child and, when the time came, to bury it. And, when that time did come, Marian of course attended the funeral herself and ensured that Thomas and Maud had enough provisions that neither would feel the need to return to their work before they were emotionally ready.

And then…well, then what? Marian felt utterly frustrated and impotent—she wanted to _do_ something, but there wasn't anything to be done. She paced, and puttered, and rummaged, and cleaned things that were already clean, all the while torturing herself with doubts. Had she and Robin, generally, done right by their people? That was her main worry. Were they a good master and mistress? Had she done everything she could in this specific case? What had she missed? Because surely she had missed something, and she didn't want to miss it again.

In the midst of all this, Marian ran across a box of her old embroidery supplies. How it survived the burning of Knighton Hall, let alone the journeys it must have made from castle to convent to Locksley, she couldn't imagine. She snorted at how she ever could have been so silly as to make embroidery a hobby and put it aside, but then pulled it out again on one particularly depressing rainy day. She said she was going to go through the box and see what could be salvaged for the use of others, but, without realizing it, she wound up separating the wool from the linen, sorting the colors, stroking the occasional silk, imagining what the canvas would best be used for…. She was called away, but came back to the box. And then again. She found herself sketching out ideas for patterns, and eventually, actually picking up a needle again. And, without realizing it, she found her frustration easing. The steady rhythm of needlework was soothing; figuring out design problems and unknotting yarns kept her mind half-occupied, which somehow made it easier for the other half of her mind to examine things more dispassionately. It was very sad that the baby had died. It _should_ be sad whenever a baby dies, she concluded. But she also concluded that sometimes…these things just happen. The key was balance. She and Robin must always stay vigilant when it came to their people, and not take them for granted, or cause them to suffer from neglect—they never wanted to become disconnected, or heartless nobles who had no sympathy for the lives or ordinary people. Still, perhaps they weren't necessarily responsible for _everything_.

Marian came to that conclusion just as she was finishing what she decided would be a pillow cover. And, as time went on, and she was faced with more petty frustrations, she found herself turning again and again to her handwork. It was nice, at the end of a day marked by decidedly minor crises that she couldn't fix, to go back to a project with achievable goals, or, after a spat with Robin, to perform something so meditative. _Balance,_ she thought. _That's the key._ Maybe embroidery, in and of itself, wasn't so frivolous after all. So long as you kept it in perspective, so long as you stayed active enough in the world that you had something better to talk about than it—because while embroidery might be an enjoyable way to past time, it certainly wasn't that _interesting_—then perhaps it was worth doing. She remembered the tapestries of Knighton Hall, and how her few memories of her mother centered around her making them. Perhaps there's something of intrinsic value in….

"God, you _must_ be bored!"

"Hmm?"

"To do embroidery again."

"What? No. You know, there's something of value in creating a thing of beauty, Robin of Locksley, though you wouldn't know it from looking at this place." Marian was determined to finish the thought, even if she had to do it out loud.

"What's wrong with this place?" Robin asked.

Marian realized how harsh her words sounded, and she didn't mean them that way; she was just irked at Robin demanding her attention when she'd rather give it to something else. "Nothing. Really. It's really a very nice house, Robin, and I'm very happy here. But it's a little…_stark,_ don't you think? All these plain white walls. So I thought I'd make a small tapestry to brighten things up a bit."

"Mmmm." Robin fell silent, and Marian continued with her work. It was apparent to her that Robin was the bored one, not her.

"I still can't get over what Allan's father did," Robin said, after a few minutes. "To abandon his wife and children like that."

"Mmmm." It was Marian's turn to be non-committal. Or, not non-committal, really. She had had plenty to say when Robin first told her Allan's story, which he had done as soon as he returned from Winifred's. And she had had plenty to say since. But a week had gone by now and Robin was still picking at it, and, frankly, she didn't have much more to add to the conversation by this point.

More attempts at stitchery. (Which is hard to do when your husband is sitting there, staring at you.) More silence. Until…

"You know, it's a miracle he turned out as well as he did, all things considered."

"He might as well have been raised by wolves." Marian wasn't sure if Robin would catch the fact that she was actually quoting him on the subject. "Anyway, aren't you supposed to be at Bonchurch? I thought you were going to spend the night there like you did last week."

"Will's coming by when he knocks off work, then we'll head over together."

"Mmmm." Marian could feel Robin's eyes boring into her as she worked, but, in one of those tiny battles of wills spouses have dozens of times a day, Marian was determined not to give him the attention he wanted. _I was here first!_ she thought. _You're the one who plopped yourself down and interrupted! It's not my fault if you can't entertain yourself for five minutes! I swear, it's like having a five-year-old…._

"Maybe it's selfish, but…all that talk, and you know what bothers me the most? What I see when I close my eyes? The way Allan looked at me when he woke up. He was so scared of me, Marian!" Marian pricked up her ears. _Well, at least that's a new one!_ Robin had repeated Allan's account of his life so far, and put his own gloss on it, but he hadn't said anything about this. "Why? Why would he be afraid of _me?_ And he knew it was me, Marian. He was kind of disoriented, like Winifred said, but he did recognize me." Robin was obviously disturbed at the memory.

One thing Marian knew about Robin was when he needed affirmation and soothing, and when he needed answers. This was one of the times he needed answers.

"Maybe," she said, thoughtfully, "It was because the last time he got beaten up this bad, you were doing the beating." She wasn't being flip. "You know how confused people get when they've had a blow to the head like that. Maybe his brain kind of jumbled the two beatings together."

"_What?_ When have I ever done anything like that? Sure, I've wanted to throttle him sometimes, but I never actually…."

"Of course you did! In the castle, back when he was with Guy," Marian said. "You honestly don't remember! You caught him in one of the kitchens, and you two tore the place up fighting. You almost killed him!"

"Oh, that! You're exaggerating. I wasn't going to kill him! I was plenty mad, but I wasn't going to _kill_ him."

"Robin of Locksley! I was there! You had slammed his head onto the stone floor, and you had your blade out, and if I hadn't pulled you off him—physically pulled you off!—you would have used it on him! And he knew it, and still knows it. And he knows you've never forgiven him," Marian added. "You put it all together…his brain's in a weakened condition, his spirit is troubled, maybe there really _are_ demons at work…he opens his eyes and sees you bending over him…."

Robin looked at the fire, a little sullen. It had been years now, and he had still never talked about Allan's betrayal, except in the most cursory terms. It seemed to Marian that Robin, and the gang, and even, to a certain extent herself, preferred pretending nothing had ever happened. Except it had. And it was big. Though that didn't mean they were going to start talking about it now, apparently. Marian shrugged and picked up her needle again. There were such long gaps between Robin's comments that Marian wasn't sure if he wanted a real conversation or not.

A few moments later: "Will says Allan and I are a lot alike. So does Djaq. She says we could be twins."

"There's a reason they call Djaq a 'wise woman,'" Marian replied.

"You think they're right? Because I don't see it. For one thing, I don't go around selling out my friends for thirty pieces of silver," Robin grumbled.

"You both really need love, and attention. And you both need to be…what? An actor in events?" asked Marian.

"To matter?"

"Yes, that's it! To matter!"

"That's what Will said. He said we were both desperate to be loved, and desperate to be needed." Will didn't phrase it exactly that way; this was more Robin's interpretation of his words. But apparently, that was the version of their meaning that had hit home.

"Mmm, I don't know that I'd say you were _desperate_ about any of that. You certainly want it, but then, don't we all want to be loved and needed? Allan, on the other hand…." Marian was turning thoughtful again. "The difference is, people have always loved you, so you're used to it. You expect it, and maybe that's a good thing—maybe we should all be so used to being loved that we thing it's our right. But with Allan, it's the other way around. Now, _he_ might be desperate…."

"What?" Robin asked. Marian was frozen, her hand holding the needle in the air, mouth open, like lightening had flashed and she had come to a sudden, new revelation.

Still somewhat dazed, Marian slowly said, "Guy. Guy loved him."

"_What?_" Robin was completely thrown for a loop. "Guy loved Allan? Like he loved you?" he snorted, sarcastically. Though the sarcasm wasn't entirely heartfelt; it was there to hide how discombobulated he felt.

"No—oo." Marian sounded less than sure of herself. She also seemed to be taking Robin's comment seriously, as if she was pondering whether Guy was literally "in love" with Allan when the three of them lived together. Robin found that especially disturbing in light of some of the things Allan had divulged about his past a week earlier. "No. But it meant a lot to him to have Allan by his side. At first I thought he was just proud to have his own little minion at his beck and call. And that was probably always part of it. But there was more to it by the end." Marian shook her head, as if clearing the clouds away. "Anyway, this is Guy we're talking about. Loving wasn't exactly one of his strongest skills." She returned to her embroidery.

Robin wasn't ready for that. He had to ask what, to him, was the most pressing question: "Did Allan love Guy?" Because as far as Robin was concerned, it was impossible for anyone to love both of them, concurrently or consecutively—it had to be Guy or Robin, one or the other. And if Allan loved Guy…well, what did that say about Robin? Robin didn't want to know, but for the first time, the thought that he had, perhaps, failed Allan whispered in the back of his mind. Up until now, he had firmly placed the blame for Allan's betrayal on Allan's greed: For Allan, money trumped every other consideration. Guy offered him money for information, and Allan easily took it, until events reached a crisis point and Marian wore him down. But what if it wasn't that simple? What if _Allan_ wasn't that simple?

So? Did he? Did he love Guy? Marian sighed. "I don't know, Robin! I didn't make a close study of their relationship at the time. I had a lot of other things on my plate, after all. And I was usually so angry with Allan I couldn't think straight when I was around him, anyway. But do I know this: whatever was going on between them…there was something _personal_ about it. It wasn't just about the money. I know you've always thought that, but it wasn't—all this talk about mattering and love has made me realize it. Guy gave Allan something else he needed. And Allan did the same for Guy." She looked back at her embroidery. "I've wondered what Guy must have thought when he woke up and found Allan gone. And, sometimes, I've wondered if that might have been one reason Guy stabbed me. He could stand to lose one of us, but both of us…I think that may be what really pushed him over the edge." Unconsciously, Marian's hand went to her belly, to the place where Guy's sword had entered.

Robin didn't notice. His mind was too wrapped up in the tangle of emotional threads Marian had presented him with. Will, Djaq, even Marian—they were all wrong if they thought a need to be loved was what drove Robin. They forgot about a sense of responsibility. And guilt. About how badly he needed, always, to be the hero, to be the one who came through, the one his people could count on. "Guy gave Allan something else he needed," Marian had said. Which meant, by implication, Robin hadn't. For once, the idea that he might have let someone down sparked resentment in Robin, along with the guilt. _I did my best for you, Allan a Dale,_ he thought. _You were a complete stranger, someone I owed nothing to, and I did my best. I'm still trying to do right by you. And if that's not good enough…._

He was still brooding on it all when Thornton showed Will in.


	6. Chapter 6, The Things We Need, part 2

**Title:** The Prodigal - Chapter 4 (Part 2), "The Things We Need"

**Author:** dcwash

**Characters:** The Boyz: Robin, Will, Much, and John, with lots of talk of Allan

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 3088

**Summary: **The Boys of the Gang get together, and Robin gets drunk. It's not a happy drunk, either, given the conversation he's just had with Marian about Allan.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

It was well after dark, and Robin was headed well into his cups, by the time John got to Bonchurch. Will and Robin and Much had finished eating so John headed straight to the kitchen to get some leftover peas porridge. (After months of these get-togethers, he knew the way. "Bring the jug back with you!" Robin hollered after him. "And wipe your feet!" added Much, who was regarding, sternly, all the mud that had already been tracked in.) When John returned to the hall, bowl of porridge and jug of strong beer in hand, he skipped the friendly preliminaries and addressed Much with characteristic bluntness.

"Well?" he said. "How's our boy? It was your turn today, wasn't it?"

In an effort to allow friends to visit—and to give Djaq and Winifred the occasional much-needed relief—without wearing out the recuperating Allan, Marian had drawn up a kind of rota whereby members of the old gang were assigned regular days of the week in which to come calling. They all found the scheme endearing and amusing, and very, very Marian. They also were finding that it served its purpose quite well.

"Better and worse," Much said. "His wounds seem to be healing, but he's got a new cough that's worrying Djaq. And he's in a foul temper! She's taken more of the bandages off, and I offered to give him a shave today, and he went into a nasty rant about how he didn't want me coming at him with a razor." Everybody smiled at the image. "I know what you're thinking, but he was serious, not joking like he does. We've had our differences, Allan and I, but he's never been a _mean_ person before. But now it seems like every little thing sets him off and turns him nasty. Or teary."

"He was like that when I talked with him last week," Robin said.

"Djaq says that happens a lot when people get a blow to the head like that. All their emotions are exaggerated," said Will. "It usually goes away."

"But not always?" asked Much.

"Yeah, not always. She says brains are funny things, and you can never predict what they're going to do when they're injured. Sometimes they fix themselves fine, and sometimes they kind of get stuck," Will said.

"Well, Lord help us if we get stuck with _this_ version of Allan a Dale," Much huffed.

"Any more word on who did it?" Will asked.

It took Robin a moment to realize everybody's eyes were on him. "Huh? I dunno. I'm staying out of it. It's the new sheriff's job." Was it his imagination, or was did everybody look a little disappointed?

"I've heard a few rumors, and suggestions, when I've gone up to Nottingham. But it's all gossip at this point. Nothing to really act on," Much said. Will nodded, suggesting he had heard something similar and come to the same conclusion.

"Can we change the subject?" Robin blurted out. "Isn't there anything else to talk about besides poor Allan a Dale? What a hard life he's had, and how nobody's ever loved him, and how his father abandoned him…." Robin was chanting the list in a kind of sing-song. If a voice could roll its eyes, this one did. Robin stopped to take a gulp from his mug.

"Wait, what's this?" John asked.

"It seems Robin and Allan had a nice, long chat last week. He's been telling us about it. _all_ about it," Will said. He filled John in on the main points of Allan's biography while Robin brooded. Robin had originally wondered whether it was tactful for him to tell the men what Allan had told him, but decided Allan was free enough with the information in the first place, and they were all close enough, that it would be all right. Drink eliminated the rest of his hesitation.

"The bastard!" John interjected, when Will finished his narrative. Nobody thought he was referring to Allan. "But it explains some things."

"What, like how he sold out to Gisbourne?" Robin said.

"Robin! He was tortured! Get over it!" Will said. _What is his PROBLEM?_ he wondered. He wasn't the only one.

"No. Well, maybe. But…." John looked at the others, obviously unsure as to whether he should go on. "Djaq will have my hide if she hears I told you this. That 'confidentiality of the sickroom' of hers and all that. But…you remember when we had that measles outbreak a couple of years ago? And Allan got so sick? With the brain fever?"

("And what kind of man gets to be that age without having had the measles?" Robin muttered.)

"Yeah," said Will. "Some of it. We were helping out in the villages while Winifred stayed behind and nursed him, so…. Hey, you helped her, didn't you?"

"That's the thing. He was out of his head, and she and Djaq were having a hard time keeping him under control, so they came to get me. I thought at first it was just because I was stronger than him, but…." John seemed to gather up his courage against the impending threat of an angry Djaq. "…but there was more to it than that. He kept calling out for his father, trying to get up and run after him. They thought that maybe if I pretended to be his dad, he'd calm down. And he did, a bit. But he kept asking why he—why _I_, I guess—had left him behind, and how he'd promise to be good if I came home, and why I wasn't pulling him out of the fire. People with fevers like that imagine they're on fire a lot, so we didn't think anything of it. But that father thing…. How was I supposed to answer that?"

"How _did_ you answer that?" Much asked, quietly.

John shrugged. "I made up something about how he was a good boy, and how when he got better we'd go off and do things together, or some such—I don't really remember it all. Like I said, I just made stuff up, on the fly. And it seemed to work pretty well. And he didn't seem to remember any of it when he got better, so I didn't think any more on it, even though it scared the hell out of me at the time. I mean, people see all kinds of things when they're out of their head like that, so…." It was his turn to take a gulp of his drink.

"And can we now _please_ talk about something else?" Robin whined. "Surely there's something more interesting going on around here than Allan a Dale getting his head knocked in two weeks ago!"

Actually, there wasn't. Allan's beating was the biggest thing that had happened around Locksley for months. Will, Much, and John all looked at each other, stumped for a topic of conversation.

"I can tell you why I was so late getting her tonight," John said, hesitatingly, as if doubtful if that would suit."

"Alright, John. Why were you late so late tonight?" Robin asked.

"That toll gate of Much's. I got hung up at it."

"Toll gate? I don't have a toll gate!" Much said.

"Yes, you do. That one Vasey set up, on the road between here and the river," Will said.

"That's not on my land. Is it? It is on Bonchurch land? Or is it on yours?" Much looked at Robin, quizzically.

"There's a toll gate around here?" Robin seemed to honestly not be aware of it, let alone that it might be on his own land.

Will rolled his eyes. "Yes, Robin! Two, in fact. You know the road that goes from here to the river? And then it fords the river and goes the long way round to Nottingham?"

"Yeah." Robin guessed he knew the road Will was talking about.

"And how the road that comes out of the forest comes down a steep slope, and then up a little one, to get to Locksley?"

"Yeah." Robin could now, vaguely, through his haze, get a picture of the spot Will was talking about.

"Well, not long before we got rid of him, Vasey put up toll gates at the crossroads there. He gave the concession to some flunky of his…."

"Eric de Moignes," Much said.

"Yeah, Eric de Moignes. Built him a little house, let him do a little farming, and in return Eric did the hard work of shaking down anybody who went past and passing it on to Vasey," Will said.

"Eric ran off when Vasey did," John added, "But the gates are still there, hanging everybody up when they try to pass by. It's not so bad if you're on foot, because you can kind of lift them up and duck under them, but if you're on a horse, it's a pain and a half. You get off the horse to lift the gate, but it's too heavy to handle with one hand, so you have to kind of prop it up as high as you can, but it's weighted so that it falls just as you're starting to lead the horse through…."

"Can't you tie it back with a piece of rope of something?" Much asked.

"Oh, like I have a handy hank of rope with me every time I leave the house!" John said. "Anyway, it's not my gate, so it's not my responsibility."

"Well, it's not _my_ gate, either!"

Robin sighed. "That land over there…some was Vasey's, some was mine, some was technically part of the king's forest, then Gisbourne got it….God knows who owns what over there by now. I tell you what. I'll sit down with Much and we'll pull out the maps and deeds and sort it out and do something." He drank some more, even though his toes were numb and his stomach was starting to roll a bit. _One more thing to worry about. One more responsibility_, he thought. _It never ends, does it?_

"But it took you that long to get through a simple gate like that?" Will asked.

"It wasn't just me. There must have been a good dozen people there, all trying to fix the damned thing," John said.

"What were so many people doing out on that road?" Robin asked.

John shrugged. "Heading to Nottingham, they said."

"But _why?_ I noticed that tonight, remember Will? It seemed like all of Locksley was on the move tonight."

"And I told you: No special reason." Will said. "People have a little money in their purses for the first time in years. It's after harvest but before spring planting, so people have time on their hands as well. They just want to get out and mix about." He chuckled. "You know John the wainwright's son, Adam? He told me he goes to Nottingham sometimes just to see the lights and all the people. To Nottingham!" Will seemed to forget that when he was Adam's age, Nottingham was the closest to a big city he could imagine, and he thought of it with similar awe.

"And they go to Wellesley and to Mill-on-Trent and other places, too, so long as they have a tavern."

"I don't know that I like this," Robin grumped. "All my people prowling around and getting drunk like that." He was one to talk. He didn't even notice when some of his own drink slopped over onto the floor, though Much did, and immediately attacked the spill with the rag he had learned to keep handy on these occasions. "Waste of money, if you ask me. And a bad influence. We're going to wind up with a village of Allan a Dale's if we don't put a stop to it. As if one isn't enough." _We're back on that again_, Much noticed.

"They're not out specifically to get drunk and cause trouble," Will said. "It's just nice to get out of your own four walls to meet your mates sometimes."

"Tell me about it!" Much muttered, still mopping, only this time a spill he noticed under Will's own feet. "I'm sure it _is_ nice! But I wouldn't know, would I?"

"What are _you_ going on about?" Will asked.

"Nothing! Nothing!" Much protested, a little too much. "It's just…" he paused from his mopping and sat back on his heels, "I love these little gatherings, I really do…but why are they always _here?_ Why can't they be at _your_ house sometime? Or John's?"

Will looked down at Much on the floor with a puzzled expression that said he was surprised Much could be so thick. "Because you're the one with a cook, Much."

Robin found this hilarious and spilled some more as he drank and laughed.

"Time was, Locksley had it's own tavern. And its own priest. And baker. And even a dame school," John said. They had found lately that John loved reminiscing about Locksley pre-Vasey, as if it reinforced his image of himself as a village elder, though a slightly errant one.

"I think I remember that. I remember asking my father if I could go to the dame school, but he said I couldn't. Said it would give me ideas above my station. Nearly broke my heart," Much said. Everybody laughed at that—Robin a little half-heartedly because the drink was really beginning to do a number on his stomach—which pained Much until he looked around and saw they were laughing at the irony of a dame school being "above the station" of a man who lived in such a grand house.

"I don't even know what a dame school is," Will said.

"It's not much, really. Just a lady of the village who can read and write a bit teaching the children their letters and numbers in her spare time. My mother might have run it. But after she died, I don't think there wasn't anybody else with the know-how." Robin was clutching his belly by this point, but it didn't stop him from finishing what was in his cup.

"Maybe Marian…."

Robin shook his head, but they never found out if that was in reference to the dame school or the state of his stomach, because he immediately stood up and started breathing hard and fast.

Much knew the signs. "If you're going to puke, do it out the _back_ door this time!" Much called after him as Robin ran out of the hall. Much hated it when Robin drank like this. Not getting drunk in and off itself—they all did that—or even to the point of sickness, but drinking with such determination and purpose. _Though to be fair, I could probably count the number of times he's done it on my fingers,_ he thought. _Maybe even on one hand. There was that time he decided to break it off with that girl. And the time he was in charge of the plan of attack in the Holy Land, and it failed so badly. And after we got word his father had died. Not the wake we had for him—everybody gets drunk at those, and there was some real joy there as well—but soon after, after he weighed his duties to the king there in Palestine, and to his people in Locksley, and decided he should stay where he was. And then…._

"Maybe somebody should go check on him," Will said, uncertainly. He and John were obviously concerned as well.

John jumped up. "I'll do it."

When he got to the back yard, he found Robin sitting in the cold air, clutching his head and trying to make the world stop spinning.

"Robin? You all right?"

Robin didn't look up. "Marian says I still haven't forgiven Allan for going over to Gisbourne."

This wasn't the answer John was expecting, and it threw him for a moment. Eventually, sensing he needed to say _some_thing, he replied, "Of course you haven't. I haven't, I know that. Neither has Much. We've just…moved on, I guess. But…." John was sure there was some way to use the story he had come out there to tell in such a way as to reassure Robin, but, unused to using language to do anything more than convey the most basic of information, he felt somewhat overwhelmed by the effort.

"And she says Gisbourne gave him something he needed, something besides money. And whatever it was, it was something I couldn't give him. That I _can't_ give him."

John was sure Marian wouldn't say anything that cruel—Robin must have misinterpreted her words. But he knew Robin needed to be all things to all people, even a traitor like Allan. So maybe his story would make him feel better after all.

"Robin, you know how we were talking about when he had that fever? And how he was calling for his father?"

"Yeah."

"He didn't just call for his father."

Robin looked up. "So?"

"He called for you." Robin just looked at John. "He kept asking for you. 'Where are you, Robin?' he kept saying. He said he couldn't breathe because of the smoke (I reckon it was that fire thing again, like he had with his father) and asking where were you, and begging you to hurry up and help him. Oh, and how he was sorry."

Again, Robin just looked at John. John smiled triumphantly. "So you see? He trusted you, even in his fever! He knew you'd come through for him. It wasn't Gisbourne he wanted, when it came down to it, was it? It was you."

"How did it end?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"This fever dream of Allan's. How did it end? Did I ride up on a white horse and snatch him out of the fire, or what?"

"Oh!" John hadn't thought about it in terms of plot. "It just sort of…petered out. He got calmer, and then he fell asleep."

Robin nodded. So he hadn't come to Allan's rescue after all. "Why didn't you tell me about this at the time?"

"Well, it was just the once. You were out in Clune when it kicked in, and it was over before you got back. So there wasn't really anything you could do about it. Didn't seem much point to telling you, really." Poor John had felt the story would go far to make Robin feel better, but it seemed to be having the opposite effect. "Don't you see, though? You were his hero, not Gisbourne!"

Which wasn't how Robin saw it, at all.


	7. Chapter 7, The Things We Need, part 3

**Title:** The Prodigal - Chapter 4 (Part 3), "The Things We Need"

**Author:** dcwash

**Characters:** Allan, Robin, and Winifred

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** Hmmm. Pushing the envelope a bit with this one. If I've done my job, it's emotionally intense and maybe a little brutal. There's some pretty graphic talk about torture, and some rough language. For teens on up, maybe?

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:**5589

**Summary: **Robin and Allan have never had it out about why Allan went over to Guy…until now.

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Once upon a time, Allan a Dale would have loved the idea of lolling around all day, but now he was getting pretty bloody sick of it. It wasn't like he could read, and he couldn't move far past the bed he was in even when he needed to. He could delight in Winifred and Djaq's company only so much, and they in his, and besides, they had things to do. Until a couple of days ago, that potion Djaq cooked up for his pain let him sleep for long stretches at a time, but she decided it was doing more harm than good and took it away. So Allan lay there, with nothing else to do besides stare at the ceiling.

That wouldn't be so bad for a man of strong imagination or of a contemplative nature, but Allan was neither of these. More especially, he shied away from introspection. There had been a few times in the past when his situation was so dire that he had looked inside himself to find out how he had gotten to the place he was in. He hadn't liked what he had seen, though, and had since tended to avoid the process. That was easier when he spent his life running—from the law, towards greener pastures—but things were different now. Now, the only thing to run from was himself, something he had been doing with increasing desperation since Vasey was ousted and the Sherwood gang officially broke up this summer past. For years, the gang had dreamed about going home and picking up where they had left off. But Allan didn't have a home, and picking up where he left off meant wandering from town to town and thieving for his own profit again. Once, that had made life one big adventure, but he was beginning to think he had had enough of that kind of adventure. At the same time, he was restless. Nothing satisfied him any more. He wanted…_something,_ but couldn't get it to come into sharp enough focus to tell exactly what it was, let alone how to get it. It made him moody, and he drank to even those moods out, which in turn led to its own kind of trouble.

And then, to make matters worse, Robin had shown up and poked and prodded until old memories and feelings that the drink helped to wash away were revived. And make no mistake: Allan a Dale had some truly bad memories—he had inflicted his share of pain in his lifetime; people had even died because of things he had done and had left undone. He used to rationalize his actions by telling himself that he didn't have a choice, or that nobody would _really_ be hurt, or that the fools of the world deserved it, or that the ends justified the means. But that didn't seem to work any more. Now, unable to run any further, lying there, hour after hour, it was almost as if the ghosts of his past sins had come back to haunt him, making him even more unsure of himself than before. It seemed that he had lied so long, so often, to so many people—to himself at least as much as to others—that he didn't even know what the truth was any more.

Which wasn't to say Allan spent this down time wallowing in remorse, either. His more hard-bitten side—the side that had kept him alive all these years—recognized there was too much potential to be choked by the sheer volume of guilt if he surrendered to it, and so transformed as much of that feeling as it could into self-pity. Self-pity, and self-justification, and defensiveness: his old emotional standbys, now with the added bonus of guilt and uncertainty, a burgeoning self-awareness and melancholy exhaustion. Throw in the effects of his recent injuries, and it was no wonder Allan was something of an emotional mess of late.

And now a hung-over, moody Robin, laden with his own issues about Allan's behavior, was about to walk into that mess.

Winifred's horse was already hobbled and ready to be loaded when Robin rode up. He knew his own horse would prefer being outside to being cooped up in a stall, even if it meant icicles dropped from his belly, so, despite the chilly, soft weather, Robin unsaddled him and went straight inside. He found Winifred bagging bread. She practically growled her greeting to him.

"Winifred!" he said.

"I'm sorry. It's just…His Nibs over there is in a foul mood, and I've caught it." She scowled in Allan's direction.

"Well, don't spread it my way!" Robin snapped.

"It doesn't look like I have to!" Winifred said. She eyed him shrewdly. "His bones ache and he can't breathe—that's his excuse. What's yours?" She asked, "Hung over? Is that it? You and the lads been drinking again? You boys didn't use to do that. I swear, I don't know what's gotten into you all. Are you that bored, or what? You need to watch yourselves…."

"I don't need a lecture, Winifred!" Robin's head hurt, yes, but he was mainly feeling drained from a lack of sleep, which in turn was brought about by questions about Allan that crept up every time he started to doze off.

They both stayed silent for a moment, biting their tongues rather than continue the bickering. The quiet was broken when Robin said, more evenly than before, "Same routine as last time?"

"Not quite." Winifred continued to throw the loaves into the saddle bags with what seemed to Robin to be undue force. "First of all, thanks to all the company we've had lately, I've been able to get out and get some work done. So this trip should be a good bit shorter than the one last week." Another thrown loaf. Robin wondered they didn't turn into crumbs. "And you needn't worry about keeping him awake, or making him eat. He's awake and eating plenty these days!" She said it loudly, obviously for Allan's benefit more than Robin's.

"Oi! I'm right here, you know!" Allan said.

"And no medicine. Djaq caught him messing about with that poppy stuff she puts in it, and she took it away. Said he must not be suffering too badly if he can get up and do that." She shot a glare Allan's way.

"I was in pain! Not that that bint cares."

"So, really, then, not much like last week at all," Robin said to Winifred. Winifred was clutching the edges of her table as if she was about to throw it at Allan, and gritting her teeth. Robin tried to give her a smile. He turned when he heard Allan coughing.

"Then there's that," Winifred said. "You need to make sure he stays sitting up, or at least propped up. He's healing nicely, but Djaq's getting worried about the state of his lungs, and he'll breathe easier if he's upright. If he has to get up, let him, but he's not as strong as he likes to think he is, so keep an eye out. If he wants tea or broth or something like that, that's fine, but he's had his breakfast already so you don't need to push anything on him."

"There's some fresh beer in the crock over there," Allan said.

Winifred strode over to the alcove bed where he lay and said, "No! No beer!" She was talking to Robin but looking at Allan, hand on hip. "He'll give you enough trouble as it is without him getting drunk on top of everything. Maybe a little small beer if he gets thirsty and he decides the tea isn't good enough for him. But I should be back by then."

She and Allan glowered at each other. "Mithering old cow," Allan muttered.

Winifred sucked in a deep breath, turned on her heel, grabbed the saddlebags, and cried, "He's all yours!" over her shoulder as she stalked out of the house. But she popped her head back in to say, "Oh, and watch for fever!"

Both Robin and Allan stayed silent even after they heard Winifred's horse walk away. Robin puttered and poked around the house, much the same as he did the last time he was there. But his reasons were different. Last time, he was almost afraid of Allan—of how fragile and hurt he was, of how much he needed. Now, he was almost afraid of himself. Marian's words about Allan—"Guy loved him;" "Whatever was going on between them…there was something _personal_ about it"—still reverberated in his brain. Once brief conversation with Marian, based on an almost off-hand remark, and all the sympathy he had felt for Allan for an entire week was gone and Robin was back to his obsession with Gisbourne. John was right: Robin never had forgiven Allan for going over to Gisbourne. He pretended he had—he had told himself he had for years now—but no, he hadn't, not really. Of course, he had never really confronted Allan with it, either. Allan returned to the gang in such spectacular fashion that it was hard to say anything to him about it soon afterwards without appearing churlish. Then, they were too busy, and Robin had stayed by Marian during her medical recovery in Acre while Allan went off and did his own thing. By the time they were all back in England, so much time had passed, and Allan had done so many little things for them all, and did them in such a way that indicated knew he had reason to prove his loyalty and gratitude, that it seemed best to Robin to just pretend nothing had ever happened. Sometimes it was an effort to swallow it down, but he did.

Robin didn't want any of that to spill out now. There didn't seem to be any point, and, in a vague way, it didn't seem fair to throw it at Allan when he was as low as this. He couldn't meet Allan's gaze, but the occasional glance he shot Allan's way showed him that he was improving, but still far from well. There seemed to be fewer bandages than before, and the swelling had gone down, and Allan was wearing at least a shirt under the bedclothes this time, but pain still seemed to pinch around his eyes. He hadn't coughed nearly as much or as badly as Robin had expected, but he was awfully wheezy and gaspy and generally having a hard time breathing. Robin had ridden to Featherstone through something heavier than a fog but not quite a drizzle, and he noticed when he arrived that the smoke from Winifred's hearth clung around the eaves of the house, unable to rise any further. Indoors didn't seem to be much of an improvement. He opened the window, but all that did was allow in a gust of damp.

"You were rather hard on Djaq and Winifred there, weren't you?" he finally said.

Allan replied, defensively, "Yeah, well, the one thing that makes me feel good, and they take it away from me, don't they? Don't even ask what I think. Like I can't look after myself."

"And if there's one thing we all know Allan a Dale can do, it's look after himself."

If the either man had been able to get past his secrets and insecurities enough to actually look at the other, then Robin would have seen remorse pass over Allan's face when Robin called him on his treatment of Winifred and Djaq, and Allan would have seen Robin wince in regret of his own sarcasm. But neither did.

"And if I don't, who will? Huh?"

Allan stopped himself just short of adding, "You?" but Robin caught the meaning anyway. It made him so angry he lost the sense of restraint he had been nursing. He said, "Well, Gisbourne's gone, so it won't be him any more, will it?"

Allan looked a little stunned. "What brought _that_ on?" he asked.

"Marian."

"What's she been saying?"

"Not much, to be honest. She said that, from what she saw, there was something personal between you and Gisbourne. I had thought it was just about the money, that you were just that mercenary. I didn't like it, but at least I understood it." Robin shook his head. "But 'personal.' What does that mean?"

"I don't…." Allan said. Or, at least tried to say.

"Maybe it means there was something between you two from the very beginning." Robin wasn't pausing long enough to let Allan say. "Maybe it means there was a reason he picked you up and not Much or any of the others on that particular day. Is that it? When did it start, Allan? Back when you were first arrested for poaching? Right after I came back from the Crusade? Were you playing me for a fool all along?" Robin was aware that he sounded like a jealous lover, but he didn't care.

"Robin!" Allan was pale. "Where do you get these ideas?" Then Allan said, more quietly, "The man's dead. And I've been back with you for years now. What more do I have to do to prove myself?" To Robin's ear, he sounded resentful, and injured.

Robin came to sit by Allan's bed. "Tell me why you went over to him in the first place. Because that's always what it comes back to with you and me, isn't it? It's always there, and we've never had it out."

"And so now that I'm flat on my back, you pounce, is that it?" Allan said.

"You got a better time? We've circled it and circled it and pretended it isn't there, but it always is. But now you can't get away," Robin said. "And neither can I." Robin believed what he said now, though it hadn't even occurred to him until the words came out of his mouth. They _should_ have it out, as difficult as it may be to do so, and it was now or never.

Allan swallowed hard, and licked his lips. "I told you! When you first caught me out! I was tortured!" His statement ended in a cough.

"You didn't have a mark on you when you got back to camp that day."

"What, you think they were going to make it obvious? You want proof? Here, you want to see the scars?" Allan was angry. He moved to turn back the bedclothes, but Robin stopped him.

"It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't _matter?_ Well, it mattered to _me_, that's for sure! But that's you all over, isn't it, Robin? A little thing like me being tortured doesn't fit into your grand schemes, so you can't be arsed. You had to look after King Richard before your own people."

"I _always_ look after my people!" The heat was back.

"Not on that day, you didn't!" Allan turned his face toward the wall.

Robin fought to get himself back under control. He couldn't believe that all it took was a little discomfort for Allan to turn traitor, not after all that Robin had done for him. As angry as he still was, though, he had to approach this calmly, and with an open mind. "Whether you were tortured or not, it doesn't answer my question: why did you go over to Gisbourne? I don't mean why did you break under torture—everybody breaks. That's why I said it didn't matter. But you did more than that, and you kept on doing it long after you got out of the dungeon. That's what _does_ matter." Allan just kept staring at the wall.

Finally, Allan said, "Did you ever ask yourself why I was with you in the first place?"

The question had never occurred to Robin, but maybe Allan was trying to make a larger point having to do with Gisbourne. "I assumed it had something to do with saving you from a hanging."

Allan snorted. "I paid that back with that first rescue mission to the castle. I could have left after that with a clear conscious. But I didn't. And you know why? Because I felt sorry for you."

"For me!"

"And Will, and Much. All of you—you were so pitiful! Remember what you were like at first? You were in a daze. Can't say I blame you—I expect I'd be the same if I was an earl one day and an outlaw the next. You honestly couldn't believe what had happened—it was like this outlaw thing was some game you were playing for a little while, and once you won you and the sheriff would shake hands and it'd be all over. That attitude got you tossed in the castle dungeon but it still didn't sink in. That's when I saw had bad you needed me."

Allan started coughing and Robin took advantage of the chance to say, "John would have…."

Allan interrupted. "John alone couldn't have protected you against his old men if they came back looking to earn a reward," he wheezed out. "And I'm not so sure in those early days if he would have even tried too hard. He owed them a lot more than they owed you. No, Robin, you needed me. You may not have been able to admit it, but you did. And not just my sword! You had no idea how to avoid the law, or even how to break it properly. You had this great idea of robbing rich travelers, but who had to teach you what to look for? Me, that's who. It wasn't like John and Roy were any great shakes at it, after all. And you know what? I kind of liked it. Being needed like that. It was a new feeling, being good for something."

More silence as Robin thought this over, and Allan's memory reached back. Robin had to admit Allan was right. John and Roy were outlaws in the sense that poverty had made them resort to petty crime and that they were cut off from law-abiding society because of it. They had learned how to live catch-as-catch-can. But Allan was the one who made breaking the law his profession, and taught them all his tricks of the trade.

"If we needed you—and I'm not saying we didn't, but if we did—and if you liked it…how could you leave us? How could you…." Robin hesitated. "….break our hearts like that?"

Allan turned back to face him with a jerk. "Leave _you?_ Break _your_ hearts?" he said. "You don't know me at all, do you?" Robin looked at him, uncomprehendingly. "Robin, _you_ left _me!_"

"What are you talking about?"

"You left me! Abandoned me, to the tender mercies of that jailer…."

"I never…."

"_You left me!"_ Allan roared back, not really listening. The effort left him winded. He closed his eyes and panted, trying to get his breath back.

After a moment, he said, quietly, "You said everybody breaks. No, they don't. I didn't. I know you can't believe it, that you thought—still think—I'm weak, but I didn't." He opened his eyes again and looked at Robin for the first time since the conversation had begun in earnest. "Do you know what they did to me? Do you want to know?"

Robin shook his head. His mind had never stretched that far. He never really believed Allan had been tortured in the first place.

"They started out with your bog-standard beating. Well, I guess you could say they _first_ started out by leaving me alone with a madman who had been in the dungeon too long, in earshot of another torture session, letting me know what was in store for me if I didn't give in. And to tell you the truth, if they had left it at that long enough, it might have worked better than the fancy tricks they got into later. But they weren't patient enough. So that's when they started the beatings. They knotted up the end of a big rope and hit me in the kidneys with that. I couldn't see it, the way they had me tied, but it felt like they had put a rock or something in the knot to on top of it." Robin looked puzzled. "I forget—you've not spent much time in prisons, have you? The knot, the rope—do it right, and it won't show any bruises. Put a rock in it, and it'll hurt worse."

Allan seemed a little contemptuous of Robin's naiveté, which rankled. He went on, in a purposely mater-of-fact tone. "They said I only had to answer one question and they'd stop: where was the camp? I didn't tell. I tried being all cocky because it made me feel braver, but all that did was make them hit me other places, but I still didn't tell.

Allan paused, studying Robin's reaction to his story. Robin appeared to be trying, but not fully succeeding, in taking it all in stride, just as Allan was trying, but not fully succeeding, to keep a quaver out of his voice.

"After a while, they gave that up and started in with the needles. This bit they did want me to see. The jailer, he brought in this brazier, and all these clamps and pincers and such, and they stripped me down, buck naked. It scared me, but I thought that there'd be no way they could use them without leaving some nasty marks, and that made me feel better, because I knew that was the last thing they wanted—to give you some proof, to make it so I could say, 'See what they did to me?'" Allan gave a bitter chuckle. "They didn't think you'd take my word for it. Maybe my reputation preceded me."

Robin noticed Allan was sweating now, and breathing hard again. Robin found himself gripping the edge of his stool, as if to keep himself steady. _My God!_ he thought. _Could it be….? Was I wrong?_

"What I couldn't see right away was the needles. Or maybe nails would be a better word. What they did was, use the pincers to hold these long, fat needles over the coals in the brazier, until they were red hot. Then they…." He swallowed again, and broke away from Robin's gaze. "Then they stuck them in, one at a time…." Robin didn't want to know where they stuck the needles, but despite that, he remembered how, after he came back to the fold, Allan always wore his braies when they went swimming. He hadn't done that before.

Allan continued: "Each needle, they'd ask me again, 'Where's the camp? Give us Robin Hood, and we'll stop.' But I _didn't tell._" Allan closed his eyes, and wiped his forehead with a trembling hand. But he smiled slightly, too.

"Oh, I was so proud! I'd never been brave like that—there'd never been any point to it. But I thought—I _knew_—you were coming to rescue me, and I didn't think I could face you if you busted into my cell and I had already told. So I screamed, and I hollered, and I let it all out, because that did make it easier, and I made up a bunch of crap, but I. Did. Not. Tell. And they left. And I thought, for a little bit, that I had won. And that you'd be showing up any minute to take me out of there. I was wrong on that, too, though."

"I was…." Robin tried to say.

"Do you know what they were doing?" It was as if Allan hadn't heard him; even though he was looking in Robin's direction, it was as if he didn't see him. "They were getting a fire ready to smoke me."

"Smoke you?"

"Like a ham. During the worst of it, my mind…it was like I wasn't there, you know? But was watching it happen to somebody else, listening to the jailers while they chatted about it, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Seems it was an old trick from Stephen and Mathilda's time. They'd take a man, and hoist him up by the ankles, and leave him there to dangle over the fire until he gave it up. Or died.

"But I didn't know that's what they were about when they started. All I knew was that they frog-marched me out of my cell—my knees were kind of wobbly by that point—and took me into this other one, where this fire was smoldering. I thought it was kind of odd that it wasn't really burning, because if they wanted to hurt me worse than they already had, it didn't seem enough to do the job. Then I noticed all this shit piled up—literally, they had cow patties in a stack—and things like a dirty fleece, and what looked like wet leaves…I didn't know what it was for, but it sent a chill down me anyway, maybe because I couldn't make sense of it. Before I knew what was happening, I was hanging there, upside down. It's hard enough to breathe when you're in that position, but then they started putting that stuff on the fire to make it smoke more…." Allan closed his eyes again, squeezing them shut this time, as if to make the images go away, and had a wracking coughing fit. "That was the first time all day I started to panic. The only thing they tied up was my ankles, so my hands were free, and I actually tried to push up from the floor to try to get away from the smoke. Course, all I got from that was burned hands." A grim, wry smile, but the eyes were still screwed shut. "They kept saying all I had to do to make it stop was tell them where the camp was, that's all, _but I wouldn't do it!_ I coughed, and I choked, and at one point I even puked, not on purpose, but I thought at least it might put the fire out…all it did was make it stink more…so there I was, naked, upside down, scorched hands, puke running down my face, and you know what I did to get through it? I imagined your rescue mission. I walked through it, step by step, because I knew—I _knew!_—you and the lads were on your way, that you'd come bursting in any minute, and I'd have saved you all, and you'd be so proud of me…" Tears were beginning to trickle out from behind Allan's closed eyelids. "…and over and over again, I told them they'd have to kill me, because I wouldn't give you up like that, and for the first time in my life I meant it, because for the first time in my life something seemed worse than dying, because _I loved you all so much_ and I kept picturing your face, and Will's, and even Much's.…_and, GOD DAMN YOU, YOU NEVER CAME!_"

The words came out in a choking sob but dissolved into a hacking cough that left Allan spent, gasping for breath.

Robin was frozen. Throughout Allan's narrative, all he could think of was, _Oh, my God! It's all my fault! All of it! I failed him, utterly!_ But even as his brain whispered that, another voice put him on the defensive. Standing back, looking at it objectively, it told him there was absolutely nothing he could have done for Allan. That voice won. Robin studied him for a moment before he said, through clenched teeth, "That's what it was all about—a full year, at least, of lies and betrayals? You felt neglected, and your feelings were hurt, so you thought you'd hurt me back? Then I'll say it: I'm sorry, Allan. That's what you want to hear, isn't it? I'm sorry. I'm sorry you screwed up and let the guards snatch you. I'm sorry Gisbourne put you in the dungeon and was mean to you. Most of all, I'm sorry I wasn't there to snatch your nuts out of the fire—again!—because I _was too busy dangling over a pit of vipers_…remember that part of the story? After all I did for you, and I make one mistake…." He sputtered for a bit, at a loss for words.

"And then you left us, after all that, to go over to your torturer! You didn't just to give him a little information now and then, you become 'Sir Guy's man!' It doesn't make any sense! It doesn't add up!"

"Guy didn't torture me." Allan was coughing again, but emotionally, at least, he seemed to be pulling himself back together.

"What do you mean? Oh, that's right! He was too busy torturing _me_ at the time! But you knew he ordered it."

"Maybe. But when you're in that kind of agony, you don't think in terms of orders. All you can think of is making it stop. Guy did that. He made it stop. And you didn't." The coolness had returned to Allan's voice, though he was still gasping for breath.

"I don't know how I got away from that fire, but when I came to, they had tied me to a stake because I couldn't stand on my own. And Guy was waking me up. He was talking to me in that little purr he had. And you know what he said? He said I had won. That he knew I'd never tell them how to find you. And that he respected me for it. _Respected_ me! I wasn't sure I believed him, but I thought it was possible, and I knew one thing: I had never gotten anything like that from you. You had never even suggested you respected me, let alone said it! No, you always let me know that I was just a common thief, and what I did and what I wanted was beneath your lofty ideals…." A brief cough, a hard swallow, a wince, and Allan brought himself back under control. "So I listened to him. And he cleaned me up, and fed me, and put salve on my wounds, with his own hands…." Allan's voice trailed off at the memory. "…and the whole time he kept talking to me in that voice of his, about how brave I was, and how much he and I were alike, about how the two of us knew how the world really works, and how we could help each other out. And he slipped me a purse of money for my troubles, and sent me back to you. I gave him to understand I'd help him out with bits of info from time to time, but I didn't mean it. Because I knew for once I'd be everybody's hero, and I'd have to live up to that. And I thought that when I got back to camp, I'd tell you the whole story, and you would be so proud of me, and we'd have a laugh at Guy's expense, and maybe you'd even let me keep his money.

"But you know what? After all I went through, I got back to camp…and there was no rescue in the works. Nobody was worried about me. _You had barely even noticed I was gone!_ 'Where the hell have you been?' you said. And that's when I faced facts. You left me there in that dungeon because I didn't matter to you! For a year, I gave you everything I had, everything I was, because I wanted to, not because I had to, but no! That wasn't important, because your bloody great king might have a problem one of these days if he ever bothered to come back to England." He and Robin stared at each other, both drained. "Maybe you did need me still, but a fat lot of good that was going to do me. It was time to stop looking after you and to start looking after myself again. I wouldn't go out of my way to do you harm, but Guy needed me, too, and he was willing to pay for the things he needed. Then I found he was willing to give me other things as well. Like praise. And responsibility. Things you had never thought were important. Or that I deserved."

Emotionally, Robin was overwhelmed, but intellectually, he saw where Allan was coming from—he understood the logic that took Allan from one step to the next. Except for the last step, the one neither had mentioned yet.

"If he Gisbourne gave you so much…and you cared so little for the king…why did you come back to us? Why then and not earlier? Or later?" There wasn't a trace of sneer in Robin's tone; he genuinely wanted to understand.

"God, Robin! After all this, do you really think I ever gave a flying fuck about King Richard?" Allan, exhausted, leaned back and closed his eyes again. "We were almost to Dover before I put all the pieces together and realized what was going on back in that barn. I knew I had enough pull to at least try to stop it. And when push came to shove, it seemed I still loved you and the lads enough to throw away everything Guy gave me, or promised me—land, a lordship, power, prestige, respect…all of it. Guy made me somebody," he murmured, "That was all I ever wanted, from anyone—to matter, to be somebody _to_ somebody. And he was going to make me somebody bigger. But in the end, I guess that still wasn't enough. I needed more."


	8. Chapter 8, Long Memories, part 1

**Title:** The Prodigal - Chapter 5 (Part 1), "Long Memories"

**Author:** DCWash

**Characters:** Robin, Will, and Much, with extensive talk of Allan

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** Let's say late teens. Warning: Discussion of rape, though nothing graphic.

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length: **3105

**Summary: **Allan's better. That's the good news. But we may be learning why he was beaten up so badly to begin with. And that's…not so good news.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

The snowdrops were up. Robin noticed them when he was riding home through Sherwood yesterday, and here they were again on the approach to Bonchurch. Robin hoped it signaled an end to this long and dreary winter—drearier than Robin would have thought possible now that the yoke of Vasey and Gisbourne had been removed. First it was the incessant rain (which even Robin had to admit had nothing to do with Vasey's presence or absence), then the incessant backbiting amongst the peasantry, and most recently the emotional upheaval caused by Allan a Dale. The atmosphere in Locksley had gotten so oppressive that Robin was glad he had his lands in Huntingdonshire to use as an excuse for an extended business trip out of town. He was only now coming back. But the trip had served its purpose, in more ways than one. Robin was returning with a clearer head and a lighter heart, brought about by simply getting away, and stepping back far enough from events to see things more clearly and dispassionately.

He hadn't done it by design, but Robin got back just in time for what he had come to consider a weekly "boys' night out" at Much's. The thought that Allan might be well enough by now to join them briefly flitted through his mind, but it was quickly replaced when he heard John's voice coming through Much's window.

"…but it's been six months now, and I want to know when…"

"John!" pleaded Will.

"…you're going to set a date…"

"It's not like I can just wave my magic wand…." Will said.

"…and marry the girl!" said John.

Robin smiled. For reasons none of them fully understood, John had taken upon himself the role of Djaq's fatherly protector, whether she wanted or needed a fatherly protector or not. (Maybe it had something to do with the shock of seeing her in skirts?) The natural extension of that was that he kept a watchful eye out for potential insults, and with the end effect being that he sometimes treated poor Will as if his intentions were less than honorable. It was really rather funny, so long as you weren't Will or Djaq.

"When? _When_, John?" Will said, obviously exasperated. "I've got this ruddy house of Robin's to build _and_ furnish, I've got crops to think about, I'm trying to fix up my own house in my _copious_ spare time so it's fit for Djaq to live in…."

"A girl in love will sleep in a barrel if it means…."

"No, she won't! Not unless she's daft! And you've seen the kind of house Djaq's used to. The least I can do is to make mine so that it has two rooms…."

"The girl's _pining_ for you to marry her!"

Robin tried to slip in without being noticed. He failed when Much turned his head in an effort to hide his laugh at the thought of Djaq "_pining"_ to marry anybody—especially when that anybody was conveniently at hand whenever she wanted him—and caught sight of Robin standing in the hallway, but at least Robin didn't interrupt the conversation, which was his main objective.

"….Djaq's up to her ears herself, training with Matilda and looking after Allan doing all her…other stuff...." Will was beginning to run out of steam, but John still shook his head, disapproving. "…and besides, even if we had the time to plan a wedding, there's no priest in Locksley to do it! We'd have to wait til the priest from Kegworth…."

"A priest! You can get married without a priest! Sure, it's nice but…." John was disgusted. What was wrong with young people these days?

"Sorry, Will, but you don't have that excuse any more!" Robin announced as he sauntered into the room.

"You're back!" Will said.

Robin laughed. "You sound amazed! What, did you think I had moved away for good?"

"Well, it's been…what, two weeks?" Will looked to John for confirmation, their argument forgotten.

"I'd say more like three," John said. "When did you get home?"

"And what's this about a priest?" Much asked.

"A: Late yesterday. And B: While I was away, I visited the dean, who talked to the archdeacon, who wrote to the bishop, who wrote to _me,_ and the upshot is…Locksley's getting a priest of our own!" Robin sprawled into Much's spare armchair and poured himself a beer from the jug. "It's all part of the service. To get Locksley back on its feet again."

"Ah! Like the toll gate!" John said. Robin looked puzzled. "I noticed it was fixed," John explained.

"Oh, well you better thank Much for that," Robin said. "It's on his land, like I thought. We had a good sit-down and sorted out who owns what before I left. In fact, that's one of the reasons I went out of town, to track down some of the deeds."

"Actually, only one of them was on my land. The other was on yours. I fixed them both. I didn't think you'd mind," Much said.

"See what I mean? Next step is for us to maybe put some rhyme and reason to it all. But not tonight. Tonight, I want to have a drink with my friends and catch up on the gossip. So! What's new in Locksley?"

John, Will, and Much all looked at each other, unsure what to say. On the one hand, it was a village—almost by definition, nothing new ever seemed to happen in a village. On the other hand….

"Ah! I've taken on a couple of helpers, like you said. Young Ben, from over towards Clun…." John said

"Nicholas and Galena's son?"

"The same. Galena's at her wits end with him, now that Nick's gone, and, well, I thought I could lend a hand…."

"He wants to 'lend a hand' with the Widow Galena? That's one way of putting it," Will whispered to Much, causing him to snicker.

John glared at them but plowed on as if he hadn't noticed: "…and Michael, Reginald and Albreda's boy."

Robin smiled, but more at the thought of Little John taking the such lost boys under his wing than at the thought of John Little trying to get in good with a handsome widow. It was very much like him, and, to tell the truth, one of the reasons Robin raised the subject of assistants when he told John he was making him the de facto forester of Sherwood. "John, all that's fine with me, but you don't need my approval, you know. I'm leaving all that kind of thing up to you. Though I'd hardly call Michael a 'boy' any more. I'd have thought Reg would want to keep his help on the farm."

John shifted uncomfortably. "Well, it's like this. When Reg got sick, Mick had to go to work. And the only work around here at the time was working for Gisbourne, as a guard. So Mick took it. And now…." He grimaced and took a swig of beer. He and Much and Will shared that look again, the one Robin could tell meant, "how much should we say?"

"Now _what_, John?" Robin asked, sharply.

John sighed. "It's just… People in small towns have long memories."

"And?" Robin's eyes flicked from one former gangster to another.

"And people remember that he was a guard, and when he goes up to Nottingham for a night out the way everybody else does, and they all have a little too much to drink, one thing leads to another, and they…_remind him_…that they remember," Will said.

"Mick wasn't one of the bad 'uns!" John said, indignantly. "He didn't really do anything except, well, guard. You know, stand around with a halberd at night in case somebody tried to break in."

Robin sighed. "You know, this kind of thing was one of the reasons I was glad to go to Huntingdonshire. What else has been happening? More hair-cuttings? More backstabbing?" Robin could tell something was going on, that there was something he wasn't being told, but he decided not to push it. He had had the chance to do a lot of thinking while he was away, and had come to the conclusion that he had a tendency to be overbearing about these things, especially with his former men. Yes, maybe it was his business, in the sense that he was the lord around here and that made everything his business, but that didn't mean he should go around demanding everybody tell him their secrets. Besides, these lads were freemen now, almost his peers, and deserved to be treated as such. So he changed the subject.

"So. How's Allan doing?" Robin was a little gratified to see the surprise in everybody's eyes at the sudden shift. Much opened his mouth as if to say something, but Will shot him an icy glare, shutting him up. _So that's it! _Robin thought_. What's happened? Oh my God! Did Allan…has Allan DIED?_ The last time Robin had seen Allan, he was bedridden, recovering from injuries he had received in a beating in Nottingham but perhaps more crippled by some kind of chest ailment. They had had words—loud, painful words—and Robin had stormed out in a pique. He hated to think that may have been the last time he and Allan ever spoke.

"He's…he's doing real well, actually. Djaq says the pneumonia's about cleared up…." Will said.

"_Pneumonia?_" said Robin.

"Yeah. You _have_ been gone a while!"

Robin was a little stunned.

"At any rate, he's back on his feet. Unsteady, but…back on his feet," John said. He also shot a glare at Much, who was pursing his lips in such a way as to express both disapproval and the repressed need to say something.

Robin chose to remain oblivious. "Good…good," he said, "Because he's been on my mind." His face clouded a bit at the thought of Allan, but whatever had tormented him the last time he visited Bonchurch seemed to have dissipated: the men noticed he was drinking less, and with more cheerfulness, than before. Nevertheless, he buried his face in his mug to take another swig of beer as he said, "I don't suppose the sheriff has arrested anybody in the case, has he? Because I know I said I'd leave it up to him, but I'm about…."

"OldTom'sWalterisgoingaroundsayingAllankilledhisdaughter," Much suddenly blurted out. He was met with a sharp "_Hssssssssst!_" from Will and a rumble of, "Much! We weren't going to…." from John, but he held his own, this time shooting his own glares.

Robin had kind of thought their secrecy had something to do with the petty reprisals going on recently, or with Allan, but this was still the last thing he expected to hear. It was so shocking he almost choked on his beer. But it wasn't just shocking, it was confusing.

"How could Walter think Allan killed his daughter when he's been flat on his back for the past month?" he asked, puzzled.

Will, eyes closed and hand to forehead, said, "Not that daughter. Not Joan. Emma."

"But…I thought she killed herself? Hung herself, didn't she? Just before she was supposed to get married." Robin was still puzzled. "And…that was three years ago!"

John continued to glower at Much, but answered Robin. "The truth is, Walter hasn't exactly said Allan murdered her…."

"Well, yes. That's right. What he's saying is that Allan's responsible for her death. Which is the same thing." Much still looked defiant. "And in fact, what Walter's suggesting might be worse."

Robin—as he so often did with these men—sighed. "From the beginning. Tell me what Walter's been saying. Exactly. And then tell me what you think he's suggesting."

"Walter…says…Emma's dead because of Allan. He…seems to think…that Allan…_raped_ Emma…and that's why she hung herself." John spoke with great deliberation, to stress the seriousness of the allegation and to make sure he got it out right.

"Walter's a fool!" Will snorted.

"Fool or not, that's what he's telling people, and _I_ think it might have something to do with Allan getting beat up. Which is why I thought it best to say something to Robin! Of course, it can't be true, but that's what Walter seems to believe." Much was as grim as John was, but also indignant at the thought of Allan being considered a rapist.

Robin was reeling, not even sure where to start. He grabbed the first coherent thought. "Does Walter have any evidence?"

"Not really. Something about Emma disappearing for a while, and then Allan bringing her home all…um…messed up, and that she wouldn't say what happened, and then they found her hanging in the barn the next morning," Will said.

"The details tend to change depending on who's listening," John said, dryly.

"Three years ago." That would have made it when Allan was with Gisbourne, Robin calculated…almost despite himself.

The four men sat in a grim silence. No matter what the truth was, such an accusation bore serious consequences.

John was the first to speak, and they weren't comforting words. "Now that that story's gotten around, there's another one turned up. Or so Ben says." The others turned to look at him. "Ben says something similar happened in Clun. He says that once their Matthew heard what Walter's been saying, he started cursing Allan and said the same thing happened to his girl Juliana at about the same time."

"Wait a minute! I thought Juliana died of…of _female_ troubles," Much said with a blush.

"She did." Robin had been married long enough that the mere mention of these things no longer made him blush…also, long enough now that he had come to doubt if "female troubles" alone could actually kill a seemingly healthy young woman. "Will, do you think Djaq knows anything about this?"

"She might," Will said, thoughtfully. "She didn't treat Juliana—did she? I don't remember, exactly, but I do know that that's the kind of thing she's working with Matilda on. But even if Matilda's told her about the case, don't expect to get much from Djaq about it. She takes this 'confidentiality' thing seriously."

"What I don't understand is why these things are coming out _now,_" Robin said.

"Long memories," John said.

"But why not three years ago?" Robin asked.

"What's up was down, what's down was up," Much said.

"And…word is, Allan's burned all his bridges with you," Will said, somewhat reluctantly. Robin was about to ask where people got that idea, but he realized he and Allan had shouted so loudly when they last met that probably all of Featherstone had heard them, and come to a fairly logical conclusion.

"And so they think he doesn't have my protection any more," he said. Will nodded. "What does Allan say about all this?"

"I don't think anybody's told him," Will said. "At least, none of us have."

"There didn't seem to be any point," Much added. "I mean, we all know he didn't do it. Why trouble him when he's been so sick?"

Conversation turned to how they could best go about rebutting the stories, since, as far as Will and John and Much were concerned, they was no way the Allan they knew could have committed such deeds. They didn't notice that Robin was largely quiet, or that he hadn't actually gone so far as to say he was Allan's protector.

That was because he wasn't as certain about the impossibility of Allan being a rapist as they were. It wasn't that Allan had given Robin any real reason to doubt him on the subject; it was more that Robin had come to doubt his own judgment, especially when it came to Allan. Lately, it seemed that every time he made an assumption about Allan—every time he thought he knew what made him tick—he was proven wrong. The truth came out in Allan's favor as much as against him, so it wasn't that Robin was convinced he was a true servant of darkness, either, just that it would be best to keep an open mind about everything Allan-related.

On top of that, Robin couldn't really fathom rape, and realized that about himself. It wasn't that he didn't believe in the concept of rape the way some men he knew did—he had seen it first-hand in the Holy Land, and knew it was very real, and very horrible. No, it was more that he had always been mystified as to why a man would rape a woman in the first place. When he was a boy, there was a popular song amongst the men working on his father's hay harvest, a nonsense tune about a magical blacksmith pursuing an equally magical spinster, with her changing her shape to elude him and him changing his to stay a step ahead. "And he said bide, lady, bide/There's nowhere you can hide/For the lusty smith will be your love/And he will lay your pride," they'd sing. Young Robin wondered why a man would want to lay down the pride of a woman, and how love entered into it, but when he asked, the men only laughed and winked at each other and said he'd understand right enough when he got older. Well, here he was, older, and probably much more experienced with women and their ways than those men ever were, and he still didn't understand. He knew what it was like to be driven nearly mad with lust, but even then, his reaction was to turn to a more willing object of desire and comfort himself with the idea that it was the first woman's loss, not his, if she didn't succumb to his charms. And if that madness wasn't the reason men raped women…well, then, what was?

Robin stood up abruptly, drawing quizzical looks.

"I've got to go."

"You're not staying the night? You always stay the night!" Much protested.

"No, I've…I've got to go." He didn't think there was any point in telling the others what he was thinking. But he did say, over his shoulder as he walked out, "I'm going to talk to Allan as soon as I can. But if you see him before I do, tell him…tell him, he hasn't burned all his bridges."

The rest of the men looked gratified, but Robin didn't slow down enough to notice. He had had to sort this out in his own mind before he confronted Allan with it, and he needed to confront Allan right away. And though he didn't trust his own judgment about these things, there was one person whose judgment he did trust.

Marian.


	9. Chapter 9, Long Memories, part 2

**Title:** The Prodigal - Chapter 5 (Part 2), "Long Memories"

**Author:** DCWash

**Characters: **Robin, Will, and Much, with extensive talk of Allan

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** Let's say late teens. Warning: Discussion of rape, though nothing graphic

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 3828

**Summary:** So how _did_ those girls die? And was Allan in any way responsible?

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

"Mmmmmpt."

"Marian, c'mon. Wakey wakey!"

She hadn't opened her eyes yet, but Marian could tell it was still dark. If Robin had to have his morning leg-over, couldn't he at least wait until it was actually _morning,_ and the sun had come up?

"I'm sorry to do this, but I have to talk to you. About Allan."

Oh, why is it always the problem child who gets the most attention? "What's he done now?"

"Raped a woman. Aha! I _thought_ that would get your attention!"

"_What?"_ Marian's eyes were wide open now. "When? How? He's been too sick to get out of bed, let alone to attack anybody."

Robin told her the stories that were circulating, about how people were certain Allan had raped Walter's daughter Emma, leading to her death, and possibly Juliana, over in Clun.

"You don't really _believe_ them, do you?" Marian asked.

"Marian, sometimes I don't know what to believe about anything anymore," Robin sighed. "I'm inclined not to. But it doesn't really matter what I believe—what matters is that Walter believes it and it's stirring up trouble. I've got to get to the bottom of it all, and quickly."

"That's going to be hard, with so much time having passed."

"I know, but I can't have people thinking I'm willing to harbor a rapist just because he's my friend. On the other hand, I can't have them attacking one of my men, especially for something he didn't do. Either way, it undermines my authority. Whatever happened, we need to find out the truth and get it out in the open if anybody's ever going to trust anybody around here."

Marian was sitting up by now, her back straight against the headboard, the back of her hand to her mouth, obviously pondering.

"People talk to you, Marian. They tell you things they don't tell me. Have you heard anything?"

It was a moment before Marian answered. "Whispers. Nothing of substance. Nothing I took seriously. That's what I've been wondering about—whether I was letting my affection for Allan blind me."

A moment later, and she abruptly—and firmly—said, "No. No. It's impossible. Rape's simply not part of Allan's make-up. He likes women too much."

"Isn't that the problem? That rapists like women too much? And can't control themselves?" Robin asked. Marian could tell that he truly didn't get it. She found it kind of endearing.

"That's not what I mean. I mean…I mean, he respects women too much," she said, only to get a raised eyebrow from Robin. The gang had had many ale-fueled late-night conversations back in the forest, when women were a prime matter of interest, and he would hardly term Allan's views "respectful." Marian answered back with impatience. "No, seriously. He doesn't respect them the same way you do—he doesn't think women are these special creatures that automatically should be admired and protected. It's more like…he expects women for the most part to be rational, and to be intelligent, the same as men. Now, Allan being Allan, he may not expect a lot in the way of morals, but that's no different from what he expects out of men, either. And if a woman proves his assumptions wrong, well, it reflects on that individual, for good or bad, not on the whole sex."

Robin still seemed puzzled. "But what does that have to do with rape?"

"Well, for one thing, if you think somebody's intelligent and rational, you're admitting that person has the right to say 'no.' But it's more than that. Don't you see? When a man rapes a woman—when he hurts her that way, instead of, say, hitting her—he's punishing her specifically for _being a woman_, and I don't think that would ever occur to Allan. He doesn't think being a woman is a bad thing."

Robin nodded. Hearing it spelled out like this made sense. For his part, all he had was a vague though strong notion that "Allan wouldn't do something like that;" it took Marian to articulate why. But Marian had gone on to the next thought.

"Of course, that's not to say Allan couldn't have seduced those girls. Persuading a girl to sleep with you is very different from taking her by force."

"So it could be a simple matter of Walter jumping to conclusions. And that…I dunno…Emma felt so guilty for giving in to Allan when she was already betrothed to…to…."

"To Osbert, James' son," Marian said.

"…to Osbert that she hanged herself." Robin sounded doubtful. It still didn't fit.

Marian seemed to agree. "I suppose it's possible, but…. Look, Emma was young, and rather innocent, but she was also sensible. I don't think guilt alone would make her do something that drastic, especially not on the night before her wedding. (Oh, you didn't know that part? Yes, the night before!) And she certainly gave the impression that she loved Osbert. Even if you take love out of the equation, it was a good match. From everything I heard, she was quite looking forward to marrying him. I don't think she'd risk losing all that for Allan's sake. And I don't think Allan would want her too. I mean, it's not like that time with Ralph's Alice."

"Wait, what's this about Alice?"

"Allan and Alice. On the night of our wedding feast last fall. Didn't you wonder why he didn't stay over at Will's?"

"He didn't? Nobody tells me anything," Robin groused.

"Oh, Robin, everybody knows about that! And nobody cares. Which is my point! It's one thing for Allan to persuade a bored widow of about his own age that a night with him might be worth any potential risk to her reputation. It's something completely different for him to get a girl like Emma to fall out of love with her betrothed, and _in_ love with _him_, and to promise her all the things it would take to make a sensible girl like her think that sex with him was a good idea, and then to abandon her—and I would think it would have to be something huge like abandonment to shake Emma up badly enough to hang herself. I know Allan and the truth aren't the closest of friends, but that's so _calculating!_"

"And so much work!" agreed Robin. If Allan and the truth were not the closest of friends, then he thought Allan and work were probably barely acquaintances. "But no matter how you look at it, Emma spent some time on the day before her wedding with Allan, something happened that seemed to upset her but that she didn't want to talk about, and then she killed herself. I'm with you in thinking Allan's not directly to blame, but he might have some insight. I was hoping I wouldn't have to ask him about it, but it sounds like I will." Robin sighed. "And about Juliana, too, I supposed, though that one seems even less likely. I mean, she didn't hang herself, she died of 'female troubles.'" He looked dubiously at Marian. "_Can_ you die of 'female troubles'?"

"I suppose so, but I've never heard of it happening out of the blue like that. That's the kind of thing women talk to each other about. And even if they don't, it's easy to notice when a woman is laid up sick in bed for a few days each and every month and make assumptions about what's going on. I've heard of cases where women eventually waste away, but that must take a long time, and Juliana was a 'robust' girl, you might say. Unless…." A thought seemed to occur to Marian, but she refused to expand on it to Robin. All she would say was, "Ask Djaq. Even if she won't get into the specifics of Juliana's case, she may tell you how a woman can suddenly die like that."

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Robin hadn't lied when he told the lads that Allan had been on his mind. Allan _had_ been on Robin's mind, and on his conscience, and even in his dreams. Something about his extended story had gotten under Robin's skin, and Robin wasn't sure why or what to do about it. But, shortly before he left for Huntingdon, Marian said something that gave Robin a new perspective.

He awoke from a bad dream in the middle of the night, a variation of the one where he dangled over a pit of vipers. (As opposed to the one where he had to fend off a Saracen attack without a sword, or the one where he was staked out in the desert and helpless to prevent Gisbourne from stabbing Marian, or the one….) This time, fire somehow figured into the scenario, and he could hear Allan crying for help in the distance. As he lay with his head on Marian's breast, trembling, and recounted the dream, and she stroked his hair—as was now their routine after such occurrences—Marian remembered a conversation from her time in St. Martha's.

"Djaq and the apothecary sister were talking about fevers, and the dreams that came with them—whether they were caused by demons, or what. And the sister said she had this theory, that we all have a fear, deep inside ourselves, that we spend our lives trying to work around, or avoid, or bury even deeper. But no matter what we do, it comes out when we are at our most defenseless, like in sleep, or when we have a fever." Marian was only awake for Robin's sake, and her voice had a dreamy quality to it.

With his head positioned the way it was, the voice coming up through her thorax, it reminded Robin of the sound of his mother's voice when he was a small child, sitting on her lap and dozing against her as she talked. Like then, Robin wasn't listening to the content of what was being said, but still took a great deal of comfort from the voice, and wanted it to keep going. "So what is it we're all afraid of?" he asked.

"It depends on the person. Djaq thought maybe something frightens us when we're children, and it causes a scar on the temperament that never goes away. And we don't even really realize how afraid we are until we're in a position where we can't get away from it the thing we're afraid of. And we may not realize it even then. Because people who are trapped by something that terrifying lose all sense of reason, and everything becomes distorted."

"Mmmm. I dunno. I don't have any fears like that," Robin said.

_Oh, my love, you have more than I can count!_ Marian thought. But it seemed cruel to say that out loud when he was in such a state, so she bent her head and kissed him instead. And shifted tacks, away from his own nightmares to somebody else's.

"But what if Allan does? And what if his fear is of being abandoned, of being left behind?" This caught Robin's attention. "It would fit—his father, the fever dreams…." Marian was struggling to keep her eyes open, but she felt this needed to be said. "And the torture you described…how much more defenseless can one be? And then you didn't come…."

"I couldn't! It wasn't possible!" Robin was becoming agitated again, as he was when he first awoke from the dream.

"I know, love, I know!" Marian said, and kissed him again, and held him closer. "We all know, and nobody blames you. Even Allan knows, in his head. But if Djaq's right, and deep inside his heart, there's a scar …well, logic and reason don't apply to wounds like that." She wanted to say more, particularly about Robin's own wounds and scars, but sleep overcame her, and Robin was left to ponder these things on his own.

The upshot was that, by the time Robin set out to quiz Allan about Emma and Juliana, he was able to regard Allan with a little more compassion and a little less anxiety than before he left. And not just Allan—a combination of factors had led him to the tentative conclusion that a certain level of frailty might, just _might_, be a normal part of the human condition, and thus forgivable, for people of all positions. Robin had even begun to forgive himself a bit for his own frailties, though he didn't realize it.

Robin approached Winifred's house with mixed emotions. On the one hand, he truly did want to see Allan now that he was doing better and now that he was convinced of Allan's innocence, and wanted to make peace with him. On the other hand, he had no idea how he would be received, and still had no idea how best to approach the serious questions at hand. It was perhaps for that reason that Robin had gotten such a late start that morning. It was definitely for that reason that Robin was relieved to see a figure by the bake oven in Winifred's back garden—it gave him an excuse to stall.

It soon became obvious that whoever was working around the oven, it wasn't Winifred. The closer he approached, the more it looked to be Djaq…which couldn't be possible, given Djaq's vocal disdain for being consigned to "women's work." Robin didn't know that Winifred and Matilda had finally driven home the point to Djaq that, if she were to stay around Locksley, she would not be able to spend all day, every day practicing medicine and never have to do any of the spinning, or weaving, or cooking, or gardening, or any of the other work it took to put clothes on her back and food in her belly. No, a village medial practitioner, like even the most successful village craftsman, had to be more self-sufficient than that, and something of a master of all trades.

So she had decided (albeit reluctantly) to learn at least the rudiments of those skills, starting with baking—the yeast Winifred worked with seemed to have some interesting properties, and baking her own bread would allow Djaq the opportunity to observe those properties more closely. So an amazed Winifred gathered up the necessary materials, and wrote down the necessary instructions…and then, perhaps wisely, left Djaq to her own devices.

When Robin approached her, Djaq was standing between a work table and the bake oven, glaring first at the oven and then at what appeared to be a tray of dark brown patties. Robin was so astonished he forgot all semblance of a courteous greeting. "Djaq! Are you…_baking?_ Is that...." He stopped short. He didn't know whatthat was on the tray, and he thought it safer not to make any assumptions.

"I'm fine, Robin! Thank you for asking! And yes it _is_ a lovely morning! I trust that you are well? And Marian?"

A chastened Robin murmured something about Marian being well.

"And yes I am baking, and this is bread dough. Made into small loaves." Djaq glared at it again.

Not knowing what else to say—for surely loaves weren't supposed to look like _that_—Robin forced a smile and said, "I'm sure Will will be pleased."

"Will! Pah!" Djaq exploded, rolling her eyes. "Why is everything I do these days gauged against Will? I speak four languages, I am literate in three, I can heal everything from broken skulls to nettle burns, and you know what most impresses the women I treat? That I'm going to marry Will Scarlet! Because he's such great prospects! Well, what if I decide not to marry him? What if I stay here? Me, Allan…it can become Winifred's Home for Wayward Outlaws!" She went on in that vein for some time while Robin thought, _Five years, two continents, and these two can still find reasons not to get married. I've never known such an on-again, off-again couple…._ But Djaq had given him the in he needed to ask about Juliana.

As Djaq wound down, Robin asked, "Djaq…about those women you treat. Was Juliana one of them?" Djaq gave him a blank look. "Juliana? From Clun? She died a few years ago, not long before she was to marry Matthew." He saw comprehension dawn on Djaq's face, quickly followed by a kind of closing down that made Robin realize answers might be more difficult to come by than he had hoped.

"No, she wasn't one of mine," Djaq said as she poked at the bread dough, seemingly in an effort to make the patties look a little more loaf-like.

"But you're familiar with the case? Maybe from some of your other patients? Marian says women talk about these things…."

"Robin, I can't talk about people's medical histories! It violates all the rules! Besides, if she wasn't my patient, anything I say would be speculation." She bent to pick up some wood for the oven, which already appeared to be white-hot.

"Djaq, all I need to know is how she died. That's all! It may help me find out who beat Allan up." That gave Djaq pause. "There are…rumors, about Allan," Robin explained. "Juliana's betrothed blames him for her death, I think because Matthew thinks Allan raped her." Robin expected Djaq to jump in with a protest and was surprised that she didn't. "But that doesn't fit in with what else I've heard, about how Juliana died. For one thing, the closest I can get to a cause of death is 'female troubles,' which doesn't sound right. For another, she died when we were on the way to the Holy Land, and Allan was with us, so I don't see the connection." By now Djaq was looking thoughtful. "If I knew for sure what she died of, it might help me see Matthew's logic, and maybe clear Allan's name."

Djaq considered her words carefully before she spoke. "I did not treat Juliana. Matilda did. So everything I say…it's theoretical, okay? Mostly based on what Matilda's been teaching me about the way people around here use herbs."

Robin nodded. "There are some herbs women use to…." She gestured vaguely. "…keep things regular. On schedule." Djaq could tell Robin didn't know what she was talking about but she didn't want to give a disquisition on gynecology right now so she plowed on. "Pennyroyal and tansy in particular. If you know what you're doing, a little tansy tea every now and then won't hurt you and may help. But you have to be careful. If a woman's already pregnant when she drinks tansy tea, it can cause a miscarriage. If she's pregnant and takes a bigger dose than you get in a normal cup of tea, it _will_ cause a miscarriage, which is exactly why women take it sometimes. The problem is, there as so many variables that it can be hard to know what a safe dosage is—that's why Matilda grows her own, because she has a better idea that way of the plant's strength than if she picked it in the wild. Miscarriages themselves can be dangerous, but the way these herbs work is to make a woman so sick her body can't support a pregnancy, and if they make her _that_ sick…well, they can kill her altogether."

"And Juliana?" Robin asked.

"When Matilda was teaching me about tansy, she said Juliana was asking about it shortly before she died. She told Juliana what I told you, and asked her a few questions—I don't know what—and decided it wouldn't be a good idea to give her any. But, like I said, it grows wild, and a lot of people _think_ they understand herbs when they really don't. And…from Matilda's description, it sounds like Juliana died of a hemorrhage. The kind that's often caused by a miscarriage." She gave Robin a significant look.

"But if she was betrothed already, why would it matter if she got pregnant? There's no shame in getting up the duff a few weeks before the wedding instead of a few weeks after. Unless…." Robin paused. He was getting the wider implication now. "….unless it wasn't Matthew's baby." Djaq nodded.

"Robin," she said, "I don't _know_ anything. I don't even know for sure if she was pregnant. And I can't believe Allan would rape anybody. But…."

"But when you put all the pieces together, it hardly helps Allan, does it?" Robin said.

"No," Djaq admitted. "Are you going to ask him about it? That's what you're here about, isn't it?"

"I didn't want to, but I guess I have to now," Robin sighed.

"Well, if you do, tread lightly, will you? Not like the last time you were here," she said pointedly. "I don't want to deal with another asthma attack."

"Asthma? I thought he had pneumonia."

Djaq rolled her eyes. "The lads hear a man cough and see and the healer wrinkle her brow and they decide that must mean pneumonia and that he's not long for this world. No, the problem was that he couldn't shake the bronchitis—that's what you saw—and that made his asthma flare up. I've seen worse, but he was pretty shaken up by it all. Winifred says it put the fear of God into him, but I don't know that I'd go _that_ far."

"I never noticed he even _had_ asthma!" Robin said.

"No, you wouldn't," Djaq said, her attention back on her bread. But she quickly looked up and said, "Oh, Robin! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it that way. What I meant was…it's always been mild enough that it was easy for most people to miss. I didn't even notice it myself until…well, I guess not long before he moved in with Gisbourne, now that I think about it. Certainly not in that first year. And then he was in the desert, and that cleared things up completely for a while so there wasn't anything _to_ notice. I hoped that moving out of the forest and into a real house would keep things in check, but the houses here are so smoky that they might almost be worse than sleeping out in the open."

"My cousin died from an asthma attack," Robin mused.

"I don't think we need to worry about that with Allan, so long as he keeps an eye on it. Like I said, his is a mild case. He's fundamentally healthy. It's just the price he pays for being in the gang," Djaq said.

"What do you mean?" asked Robin.

"You know how Much says he can tell when it's going to snow because that sword wound to his back starts acting up? And how your shoulder aches sometimes, where Gisbourne stabbed you? Like that. A reminder that justice comes with a cost."

"And what price do you have to pay, Djaq?" Robin asked. Djaq looked at the bread dough, and then back at Robin, and spread her hands as if to say, "What does it look like?" Robin gave her a wry smile and turned to go into the house.


	10. Chapter 10, Long Memories, part 3

One more section, which is close to done, and I'm finished with this chapter. Then one more, much easier, chapter, and I'm finished with this fic. Which is good, because I have a feeling canon events are about to catch up with me. (Of course, if I cared that much about canon events, I wouldn't be including Marian, Will and Djaq in these things, would I?)

**Title:** The Prodigal - Chapter 5 (Part 2), "Long Memories"

**Author:** DCWash

**Characters:** Robin, Marian, and Djaq, with extensive talk of Allan

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** Let's say late teens. Warning: Rather extensive discussion of rape, though nothing graphic. Description of a death (not of a main character) is more explicit, however.

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 3557

**Summary:** Robin gets Allan's version of events. Or starts to, at least.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

The back door and window were shut so Robin decided to try the front—not only would it be less disturbing for Allan if he were asleep, but it would give Robin a bit more time to plan his approach. He could hardly blurt out, "So, Allan! Did you rape Emma and Juliana?" especially if he already thought Allan _didn't_ rape Emma and Juliana. On the other hand.... Marian had talked about seduction. He saw her point about Emma but Juliana was something else altogether. She had been, as Marian so delicately put it, a "robust" girl—buxom, pleasingly plump, always with a grin and a bit of lip. She was also a little older than Emma. Robin thought she might be Allan's type, and, though Robin felt uncomfortable thinking ill of the dead, she had always seemed more likely to be open to persuasion about these things than perhaps was quite proper for a young girl. That might be an angle, but it still wouldn't be easy. But maybe a more generalized approach was better. _I dunno_, Robin thought. _I guess I'll make something up as I go along_.

Robin had half convinced himself to go away and come back another day if the front was shut up as tightly as the back, but instead he saw the door and window wide open, and Allan sitting at the table beyond, seemingly concentrating on something in front of him.

Robin paused in the doorway to study Allan. He was thinner. And possibly paler, though in a way that was better—at least he was no longer black and blue (and yellow and green) with bruises. The bandages and splints were gone, too, and Allan's hair had grown back enough to start to curl again. But what Robin found the most surprising was what Allan was doing. He was hunched over, lips open and tongue pressed against the edge of his top teeth with intense concentration, using a kind of sharp stick to trace something on what appeared to be a board laid on the table in front of him. It took Robin a moment to realize he was watching Allan practice writing letters.

For some reason, Robin was suddenly and profoundly moved by what he saw. He stood stock-still in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt. But, without looking up, Allan soon said, "I know you're there. You're blocking my light." He leaned back and admired his handiwork with his trademark half-grin, then turned to Robin with the same expression…which immediately froze when he saw who it was.

"When _I_ was a boy, we practiced our letters on slates. And walked two miles barefoot in the snow to do it. Uphill both ways. I don't know that I approve of this new-fangled technology you lads use today," Robin said as he walked over to the table. At least now they had something to talk about that was less weighted than the more obvious options.

"Yeah, slates—that's what Winifred said. She rummaged around looking for the one she taught her children with but when she couldn't find it, Djaq came up with this idea. She said it's what she used. I guess she had Will run it up for her."

"Wax tablets. I've seen them before. Scribes use them to make notes and rough drafts and things like that. Scratch the letters in the wax, then rub them out when they don't need them any more." He examined Allan's efforts. "So what brought this on?"

Allan shrugged, half proud and half embarrassed. "Boredom, mostly. I know it's kind of a silly thing to take on at my age, but I didn't have naught else to do. I started fooling around with a quill and parchment Djaq left out, and Winifred raised holy hell, saying parchment was too dear for me to doodle on, and then Djaq joined in, and next thing I knew, they were showing me how to hold a pen and form letters. Still not sure what to do with them, but…." He shrugged again. And went quiet.

Robin nodded, but didn't say anything, either. Both of them seemed to have come over all bashful, perhaps remembering their last encounter. Allan scratched aimlessly on the tablet with his stylus, and Robin thought he saw in his eyes a hint of melancholy. He was right—Allan _was_ a bit melancholic. Like Robin, Allan had been doing a lot of thinking lately, about who he was and why he did the things he did and how he fit in the world. However, he had reached a completely different conclusion. He had come to realize that he had, consistently, been too easy on himself, and as a result had done a lot of damage, to himself at least as much as to others. The worst part was that he had no idea how to even begin to repair that damage. The only thing he could think to do was to find a place where he could make a fresh start, and to resolve to make no more excuses.

And now here was Robin, the man with whom Will said he had "burned all his bridges," the living reminder of how badly he had screwed things up. If cornered, Allan would stand by what he had said about his reasons for going over to Gisbourne; his heart still pounded at the thought of it. But while he told the truth that day three weeks ago, it wasn't the whole truth. _No_ _more excuses_, he thought. This could be a chance to try that out. Hell, it couldn't make things any worse.

"Robin…" Allan began. He continued to doodle. "That stuff I said…about me and Guy. All that was true, but there was more to it." Robin felt a chill. "The truth is, I thought I could play him. A little of the old this-and-that, you know? I mean, he was never the sharpest tool in the shed. I knew he was a hard man, and bad, but I'd been around hard men before and handled myself all right. I was hardly an angel myself, and could be hard if I needed to." Allan, still doodling, shook his head. "But Robin…I'm not being funny when I tell you, I thought I knew 'bad,' but him and Vasey…they redefined the word!" He sounded almost awestruck. "Compared to them, I was just a little naughty! I got myself in right over my head, from the first day. Right over my head. I was a fool. I'm sorry."

Allan got up to warm his cramped hands over the hearth and so missed seeing the tension leave Robin's shoulders. When Robin heard, "There was more to it than that," he expected the worst, though he couldn't imagine what could be worse than what Allan had already told him. But this? This was one of those frailties Robin had begun to forgive. Besides, it was pure Allan. Robin almost smiled, but saw that Allan still looked troubled. Apparently, it was harder to admit to being a fool than to admit to betraying your friends out of a sense of righteous indignation.

After a moment, Robin said, "I'm sorry, too. I said…I said some things that I shouldn't. It's just…when you said I didn't take care of my people…." Robin had in mind making up for their fight, but was finding apologizing to be harder than he expected. He wasn't used to making apologies, especially not to men he usually ordered around. "My father used to take me around with him, and say, 'Don't every forget—these are _your people_, Robin. They depend on you. You've got to look out for them. It's your job to take care of them.' He told me that, over and over again. So when you said what you said…it was like waving a red blanket in front of a bull."

"And I wasn't one of your people?" Allan asked from his place by the hearth.

Robin looked up sharply, expecting another blow-up, but saw that Allan wasn't making an accusation, only looking for an explanation, as if what mattered most now was simply connecting the dots. _No more excuses,_ thought Allan. _But excuses aren't the same things as reasons. Are they?_

"No!" Robin said. "Of course you were. But I can't think of a time when Much wasn't _there_, depending on me, you know? And Will and even John. I remember Will running around in nappies, and my father always told me to stand up to the big boys in the village who would terrorize the little boys about how Big John Little was going to get them. And you…well, you were new." Robin paused, wishing he had something to occupy his hands the way Allan did. "If it's any help, all that 'take care of your people' stuff my father said…it means he didn't think they were smart enough or strong enough to take care of themselves. And he passed that on to me, to a certain extent. It's something I'm struggling with now. But I never saw you that way. Or Djaq, for that matter."

Allan nodded, thoughtfully. After a moment he said, "You remember Will in nappies? I didn't think you were that much older than him."

"Will," Robin said, conspiratorially, "Wore nappies for an awfully long time. It was the cause of some comment, as I remember."

"Well! I'll have to bear that in mind! You never know when that kind of knowledge might come in handy," Allan said with a smirk.

Just like that, their terrible blow-up and its causes were put behind them, forever. Put behind them, but not exactly forgotten and forgiven. Later, each man would realize the roots of the conflict were still there—Allan would always feel he had been abandoned, Robin would always resent Allan's impossible expectations and the betrayal itself—but now tall, strong fences stood around the great gaping wounds Marian had alluded to, and each respected the signs saying "Danger! Keep Out!" while they slowly healed.

Of course, none of this brought Robin any closer to knowing the truth behind the rumors about Allan, Emma, and Juliana. However, it did make him feel more comfortable in his plan of approach.

"Allan, just what was life like with Gisbourne, anyway?" Robin asked.

No longer needing the light, and wanting to keep the chill out, Allan had gone to shut the door. Robin couldn't see his face, but did see his back visibly stiffen.

"There's a point to this, Allan, I swear! Bear with me!" Robin hastened to add, hands up in protest. When Allan turned to face him, Robin said, "When we were fighting Gisbourne, I was angry about his taking over my lands, but I mainly thought of him as Vasey's enforcer and as an assassin. I didn't think about how he managed the estate—how he acted as lord of the manor. Tactically, in terms of what it took to get rid of him, I don't think that matters. But now that he's out…." Robin moaned and put his head in his hands. "Now, everybody's filing claims against each other, I've heard seven different versions of how the crop rotations worked over the past few years…I swear, I don't think the man held a single manorial court the whole time he was in Locksley…." He looked up with a pleading expression. "Allan, you're the closest thing to a disinterested observer I've got. All I'm looking to do is understand how things worked under Gisbourne. That's all! No blame, nothing like that, just insight on how the manor was run, so I can get things headed in the right direction again. Please?"

Allan paused to consider. Robin was right—now that the guards were gone, he probably _was_ the only one who didn't have a vested interest. He was intrigued, but, "I'm not sure how to start…."

"You said he gave you responsibility," Robin prodded.

"He did. He put me in charge of the search for Vasey when he went on that walkabout, remember?"

Robin nodded.

"And I supervised the corn production on the Locksley home farm."

Robin looked so surprised Allan laughed. "What? Is it that amazing? I told you how I used to make my way doing sowing and harvesting," Allan said, with a touch of prickliness.

"No! Yes! It's just…I never thought of you…that way," Robin said.

"Robin, this is the way you acted when you found out I used to be a rent boy!" Allan started to laugh at Robin, hard—the first time in a long time he had laughed like that without it turning into a coughing fit. After it died down, "What can I say? I gave myself the job. Guy was always complaining about how low the yields were, but that's all he seemed interested in doing about it. I thought it'd be a way to make myself valuable without doing much of what you might call 'collateral damage.' And after a while…well, it got to where it was nice to have an excuse to get out of that house."

Robin made a mental note to return to the subject of Allan as farm manager; for now he thought it best to start with a general picture of life in the manor and then gradually narrow in on the specifics.

Allan, always savvy about these things, was a step ahead of him. "Look, I'll help you as much as I can, but if you're looking to find out what your average day in Locksley Manor was like, well, there _wasn't_ an average day, at least not for me. Wherever Guy was, he wanted me next to him. I ran back and forth between Locksley and the castle so much I got to where I was doing it in my sleep."

"And Gisbourne kept you next to him so you'd…." Robin gestured to indicate he wanted Allan to finish the thought.

"Make him feel like a big man, mostly," Allan said, dryly. He poured a jug of beer from Winifred's keg and brought it and two mugs over to the table. "I know sometimes I said I was his right-hand man and sometimes I said I was just the whipping boy. And yeah, at the time, I was trying to make a good impression on whoever I was talking to, depending on the situation. But the truth is, I was his right-hand man _and_ the whipping boy. It all depended on what kind of mood he was in. And a lot of that depended on the Sheriff. If the Sheriff gave Guy a hard time, Guy passed it on to me, and I got the back of his hand and the job of cleaning his boots. If Guy did something to make the Sheriff especially happy, then I was his Golden Boy. Though in some ways that was worse."

"How could that be worse?"

"Because then I had to have dinner with him and drink with him and listen to him talk. And he could go on!" Allan groaned. "All about power, and loyalty, and ambition. Power, especially. He had a thing about it. He lusted after it more than he lusted after women, and that weren't trivial. 'Course, he never seemed to know what to _do_ with it once he got it. Except…." Allan looked like he was about to say something else, but stopped himself, and looked thoughtful. He gave his head a little shake and took a sip of beer instead of completing the statement.

He seemed to have changed the subject slightly from that thought when he started up again. "Look, you know how when you're a little kid, and you imagine what it'd be like to be king of the world, and you think of how you'd punish the people who've always been mean to you, and how you'd never have to work, and how'd you get to eat sweets anytime you want? And as you get older, it gets more complicated than that—you start to think about why people love a king, and what you'd do to get them to love you?"

"Put a lot of thought into being king, did you?" Robin interrupted, teasing.

"Even poor boys dream, Robin," Allan said with some sharpness. "Until real life beats it out of them." Robin was beginning to realize he still needed to tread with some care around Allan. "Anyway. With Guy…it was like he never got past that first way of thinking."

"And Locksley manor was his kingdom?" Robin asked.

Allan shrugged. "When he could be arsed."

Robin said, "I guess that passed down to the guards. A lot of the complaints I'm dealing with come down to them."

"Pffft!" Allan snorted. "Yeah, well you better take those things with a big grain of salt. I'm sure there were a couple of bad apples, and I can't vouch for how things went when we were at the castle—'when the cat's away,' you know. But from what I saw, Guy kept them under a pretty tight rein. He gave them a decent cut from the money they collected for him, and just enough freedom and that power he loved so much for them to put a bit of swagger in their step, and in return, he didn't allow them to go freelancing. Said he needed them to stay disciplined." Allan, a step ahead of Robin, added, "And before you ask, yeah, that's how it worked for me, too, more or less. I even kipped with the guards a lot of the time; that's how I know so much about them." He chuckled. "In fact, at first Guy had this idea of putting me in charge of them, but _that_ got shot down real fast. Too many of them remembered fighting me."

"So it sounds like he didn't treat Locksley so much as a manor as a garrison," Robin said. "That would explain the chaos I'm dealing with now."

"Exactly!" Allan said. "I think that was the only way Guy knew how run things—like a territory his army was occupying. I mean, he'd been a soldier all his life, hadn't he? Now, he liked to call himself 'lord of the manor' and he…he…enjoyed some of the privileges…." A kind of cloud passed over Allan's face, and again he gave his head a little shake, and again, Robin got the sense that Allan was changing the subject, ever so slightly. "Like, he'd talk about changing the name of the place from 'Locksley' to 'Gisbourne.' But he looked at land the same way he looked at power: having it in his hand mattered more than doing anything with it."

It was obvious to Robin that Allan was struggling with how to tell him something, or with whether to tell him at all, and it made Robin uneasy. He didn't know what to do besides continue to draw Allan out about his memories of Locksley during his time there.

"I'm always surprised at how many women you find around garrisons and barracks. You think of them as men-only kinds of places."

Allan nodded. "They were always hanging around. It's the money, isn't it? The men who worked for Guy were the only ones that had any, and there wasn't a lot to spend it on besides birds. And there's lots of girls who like having money spent on 'em. You remember Constance?"

"That woman of yours in Brockton?" Robin asked.

"Yeah. That's how we met. Her friend was courting a guard, and she'd bring Constance along sometimes. (Come to think of it, they got married and moved off somewhere when things got hot.) Working for Guy…well, it made you a catch, to be honest."

Allan began doodling on the wax tablet again, giving it an inordinate amount of attention, writing letters in combinations that he didn't know made no sense.

"Straight-ahead girlfriends, but lots of others, too. Washerwomen. Girls peddling cakes. Whores. Beggars. They were practically lining up at the gates. Looking back on it, I wonder how many of them really wanted to be there. There was one girl…. I remember I was heading up to the manor house at about sunset, and there was this girl just…pacing, back and forth, like she couldn't decide whether to come in or not. I went up there to see what she was about, and she was this little slip of a thing, all tricked out, with berry juice on her lips and her bodice half open. I almost thought she was playing at being a whore, playing dress-up or something, but she was serious, and she was just this _kid_, you know? Seems they had run out of everything and that was the only way she could figure to feed her little brother and sister. The poor thing was scared to death."

He slapped the stylus down and looked around, fretfully. "I never know what to do with girls like that. I mean, some grown woman who'd rather make her money on her back than scrubbing floors, that's one thing. But somebody who's on the game as an absolute last resort, or who's only doing to it keep from getting a beating…. Seems like whichever way you go, you're going to make it worse for them."

"What _did_ you do?" Robin asked. He pressed the matter because he had a feeling they were nearing whatever it was that had been bothering Allan so.

"I gave her what I had in my purse and sent her off with a flea in her ear. Told her if she came around like that again, I'd tell her father. Turned out her father had sent her! Can you imagine?" Allan looked at Robin, horrified. "Robin! What did you think I'd do? She was…she was just a _kid!_" Robin had to smile a little. He remembered something Allan had said weeks ago, about there being a line he wasn't willing to cross, and it made him feel a bit more comfortable about whatever Allan was debating internally.

Though Allan didn't look that comfortable. What he reminded Robin of was a cat in a thunderstorm, anxious and unable to sit still. Now he was up again, headed towards the kitchen. "Lunch. That's what I want. Oi, you want anything?"

"Sure," Robin shrugged. "These women. Did they ever go to the manor house? Or did they only make it as far as the barracks?"

"That's the thing about being the lord. You don't have to pay for it, do you?" Allan said, brittlely.

Allan said it as a quip, but Robin felt a chill go through him nonetheless. _"He…enjoyed some of the privileges," Allan said….and didn't Gisbourne himself say something about Robin's serving maids in one of their encounters?_ Robin thought he had an inkling about what was making Allan so anxious, and he didn't like it. Not one little bit.


	11. Chapter 11, Long Memories, part 4

**Title:** The Prodigal - Chapter 5 (Part 4), "Long Memories"

**Author:** DCWash

**Characters:** Only Robin and Allan appear in this section, but they do talk about Guy

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** Multiple warnings: 1. Sexual assault is discussed 2. I know a lot of people get all wooby over Guy. I'm not one of them. I think he's a bad, bad man, though perhaps not irredeemable. If you're a Guy fan, you'd probably be better off skipping this one to avoid heartburn. If you do, you can still happily read the next chapter.

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 3262

**Summary:** Robin gets Allan's version of events. (Cont.) And we find out what happened to Emma and Juliana.

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After much more clattering than seemed necessary, Allan came back to the table with a trencher of bread and cheese, already hacked into pieces. But the activity seemed to have had a calming effect. He had a resolute look on his face, and instead of partaking of the food himself, he pushed the trencher toward Robin and sat facing him, hands folded on the table. _This is it,_ Robin thought.

Allan didn't bother with a transition. "After I had been with Guy a while—long enough to know where I stood with him, and to have a feel for how things worked—we got a new guard." For the first time, Allan reminded Robin of Little John in his apparent determination to say what needed to be said, and to say it right, even if it was difficult. "I'm not sure where he came from—maybe the castle. He wasn't one of Guy's old men but he had been around a bit. He used to blag about the things he'd seen and done."

Allan kept looking at his hands, is if that would keep him from being distracted. "One evening a bunch of us were sitting around the day room in the barracks, just shooting the shit, like you do, you know? And this guy starts rabitting on, and I'm only listening with half an ear because…." Allan made a dismissive gesture, but kept looking at his hands. "But the other lads, they're kind of young, and they're rapt. And then he starts talking about this thing they got in France, this…_droit du seignur_?" Allan looked up at Robin, as if for confirmation that he had gotten it right.

Robin, who was always surprised at how good Allan's French was, nodded. "Yeah. I'm familiar with the term."

"…and asking if we had it here, what with Guy being from France and all. Then he explained what he meant, because 'the right of the lord,' that could mean anything…and then I _did_ prick up my ears! I'd always heard talk of it, about the lord having the right to screw his girl serfs before they got married, even when I was a kid down in Sussex, but I hadn't heard anybody say anything about it up here, and I hadn't heard it called by that name. In fact, I'd never heard of it actually happening to a real person, just hints that it _could_ happen if you didn't pay the lord his marriage fee."

"I don't know that I've ever heard of anybody doing it, either," Robin said. "My tutor taught me about it when I was young. He used to say what separated a good lord from a bad one was mercy and self-restraint, and he used it as an example of what _not_ to do—that just because you have a legal right to something, that doesn't mean you should use that right." Robin started to prompt him to get to the point Robin was sure he was making, but Allan beat him to it.

Allan went back to looking at his hands. "So the guy says, if the lord has this right, what about his men? Does it get handed down to them in some form? I wasn't sure if he was talking philosophical or specific, but I thought I'd better nip it in the bud, anyway. I mean, I was supposed to have _some_ authority, right? And, like I said, the other lads, they were young…." Allan shrugged. "So I started talking it down, about what a bad idea it was. I mean, it's _wrong_, obviously, but I thought I'd better talk practicalities as well, about how it'd cause more trouble than it was worth, and how we didn't need to make any more enemies since we were so outnumbered, and like that. And the lads, at least, looked like they got my point."

"But the other bloke…he troubled me." Allan's hands stayed still, but he got a pained look on his face and he began to shift in his seat like he couldn't get comfortable. "So after a few days, I decided to take it to Guy. I mean, what's the point of being his 'right hand man' if I can't do something like that, right? I had said everything I had to say to the guards about the subject, and besides, it wasn't like anybody had actually _done_ anything, as far as I could tell. So I told Guy, 'You may want to keep an eye on the new man,' and I told him what he had said, like I just told you. And Guy asked a couple of questions and seemed to take it seriously, and I thought, 'Well, Allan, you've done all you can, now quit worrying and leave it be,' and the next day me and him headed back to the castle and I didn't think any more of it. But…."

The pained look on Allan's face turned to a deeper distress and grief, and he bent over, almost as if he were in physical pain, and rested his forehead on the heels of his hands. It took him so long to speak that Robin placed a hand on Allan's wrist and gently asked, "But what, Allan? What happened?" Robin could imagine a dozen different possibilities, but they all circled around the same dreadful point.

Allan took a moment, then sucked in a deep breath and sat up straight. "We were back in Locksley one night a while later, and I needed to ask Guy something…I forget about what, something mundane. And I'm at home, right? And it's night, and I'm not…I'm not armed, you know? 'Cause I'm at home, not out in the field. Not worried about dealing with you lot. And…I hadn't seen Guy for…God, for ages, hours probably, but I thought he might be in this room he used as kind of an office, so I just walked right in, 'cause that's what it was like with us…."

Allan jumped out of his seat and started pacing. He closed his eyes and put his hand against them, as if he wanted to block out what he was seeing. "And there these guards, holding this girl, one on each side, and another closer the door. It seemed kind of odd, because I hadn't heard of any trouble, and like you said, Guy didn't hold courts or anything—if he caught somebody doing something he didn't like, he'd deal with it right there, and otherwise, he didn't care." Now he flung the hand away and gesticulated in the air. Everything about his demeanor reflected frustration and helplessness. "But I couldn't tell who she was from that angle, so I came in closer, and saw that she looked familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on why. She was crying, and Guy was sitting there with his feet up on the table and that _leer_ I had gotten to know, and for some reason I remembered that 'droit du seignur' conversation, and I put two and two together right quick, I tell you. And I thought, 'I've got to stop this!' I didn't know _how_—I mean, I didn't even have my eating knife on me, and there were three guards, armed to the teeth and in full armor, as well as Guy. But I had to do _some_thing!" Allan turned to Robin, as if desperate to be understood. "So I did the only thing I could think of: I started talking. I mean, that's what I'm supposed to be so good at, right?" He pleaded with Robin for affirmation, and Robin didn't know what else to do but nod. "So I started going on about…God, about everything—every angle I could think of. About how Guy was a better man than this, about how skinny the girl was and how he could do better, about how he didn't have time to deal with the fallout, what with the Pact and all…everything. And then I went too far: I brought up Marian." Allan stopped pacing and shook his head at how stupid he had been. "Something about what she would think if she knew. Well, _that_ got his attention. He yelled something like, 'How dare you speak her name!'…and, I swear Robin, he knocked me halfway across the room. Then the guards kicked me the rest of the way. And the one by the door threw me out—literally, he picked me up and tossed me through the door. And he bolted the door behind me."

Allan sat back down heavily on his stool. "What was I supposed to do?" he asked, obviously in distress. "What was I supposed to _do?_" Allan looked at Robin as if he really wanted Robin to provide him with an answer, as if that would make things turn out differently, but Robin didn't have one. Allan took a few deep breaths and returned to the attitude he had when he had begun, calmer, with his hands folded on the table. "It didn't seem right to hang around there—I mean, to do what, listen at the door? How was that going to help anything? And how'd you like it if you were her? But it didn't seem right to just go to bed, like everything was alright, either. It wasn't…respectful, maybe?" An odd choice of words, Robin thought, but he could see where Allan was coming from.

"So…to tell you the truth, I was kind of stunned, from the smack Guy gave me, I guess, and my lip was bleeding, so I went to the kitchen to clean up. And…hung around there for a while, because…I didn't know what else to do."

Allan kind of shrank into himself, and drank some of his beer, and studied his hands again. Robin's heart went out to him. He had anticipated the upshot of the story much earlier, but had no idea Allan had born such close witness to it. He was also surprised at how distressing Allan still found it. It had, after all, been more than three years since Allan left Gisbourne, and from the sound of it, Allan had done all he could. (The hero in Robin wondered why Allan didn't rush off and get his sword as soon as he was thrown out of the room, come back and knocked the door down, and fought off all three guards and Gisbourne as well, but he was getting old enough now to know that hero was often wrong.) He was about to tell Allan as much when Allan started up again.

In a calmer voice, Allan said, "After a while, one of the guards found me. He said Guy said that if I was so worried about the girl, I could take her home. So I rigged up a cart and met her at the back door. But before we pulled out, Guy called me over and gave me a purse to pass on to her, and at least he had the grace to not be able to look me in the eye. As if money would make everything all right again!" Allan exclaimed, bitterly.

"When we got there, the place was all dressed up, with greenery and decorations and all, and it hit me where I had seen her before—when she came to the manor to get permission to marry. And that it was all rigged up for her wedding. And I tell you, Robin, I almost started crying. But I still had that purse to give her, so all I did was hold it out to her, like I was some kind of…daft…." Allan could only shake his head in self-disgust. He closed his eyes again. "And the look she gave me! Robin, I've never been so ashamed in my life. Before or since."

"Did anybody tell you her name?" Robin asked.

"No," Allan said. "But the worst of it…the worst of it was the next day. We heard back at the manor that this girl named Emma had hung herself, just the day before she was supposed to get married. And I figured…I figured that had to be her."

The two men sat in silence for some moments. Robin was angry—angry with Allan, and he knew he had no right to be. Eventually, he asked, "Allan, why didn't you tell anybody?"

"I did! Sorta. No, no 'sorta.' I did." He looked at Robin. "When I went back to the kitchen, the old cook what used to live there…."

"Hilda?"

"Yeah, Hilda. I had to tell somebody, so I told her. And she heard me out and said I shouldn't tell anybody else. That all that would do is bring Guy down hard on everybody and bring shame on the girl. And she said that she'd keep an ear to the ground, and if she heard anybody talking bad about the girl, she'd set them right so the girl's reputation wasn't hurt. And I wasn't thrilled with that, but it made sense, so I kept quiet. And then, when I got back in the gang…well, it was like you said, tactically, it wouldn't have made any difference—we were working as hard as we could to throw Guy out, and telling that story wouldn't make us work any harder, and it might cause her family pain."

"So why are you telling me now?"

"Because I'm trying to own up to things when I'm wrong, and make them right—to turn over a new leaf, like. And when you started asking about what Guy was like as a lord…and I put it all together…my God, Robin! I was probably the one who put the idea in his head!" Allan said, clearly horrified at the thought.

"No. No, you didn't, Allan. Don't even think it." Robin said, firmly, "I'm sure—_positive_—Gisbourne knew about it before you told him."

That seemed to relieve Allan. "You think so?"

"I know so." Actually, Robin said it with more confidence than he felt. He thought it quite possible that Allan _had_ put the idea in Gisourne's head when he told him about the new guard, but he couldn't have Allan berating himself for doing what was so obviously the right thing. "And, Allan, she knew you defended her. Think about it: Yours could have been the last sympathetic face she saw. I mean, we don't know what went on after you dropped her off."

They brooded on this for a bit. Robin pushed the trencher toward Allan. "Here. Eat something. It'll make you feel better." Allan seemed to agree and nibbled a bit, absentmindedly.

"Were there any others?" Robin asked.

"I'm pretty sure of two. But for all I know, there could have been more. I started to spend more time out of the manor house, at Constance's or out in the field or anything else. And people knew how I felt about it. It would have been easy to keep me in the dark. I only know about those two because I got rousted out of bed to take them home. I met one of them in Nottingham a couple of months ago. Seems she told her betrothed what had happened, and he blew up at her broke it off, and then her family put her out because of it—said she had shamed them. She didn't have any choice but to move to Nottingham and get by as best she could. I suppose something like that could have been what got to Emma."

"And the other?" Robin was picking at the bread and cheese himself now, even though it was looking pretty sad.

"A girl named Juliana, from Clun." Robin winced at the words, but Allan didn't notice. "Just before we went to Portsmouth. We were gone so long, I lost track of her. I hope she turned out alright, at least. I always kind of liked her. A game girl, you know?" Robin didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise, especially since Allan seemed to be feeling better. Either the food was doing its job, or he felt like he had received a kind of absolution from Robin.

"Allan, after all that, why didn't you leave Gisbourne?" Robin asked.

"How?" Allan said, matter of factly. "Guy didn't have to say he'd kill me if I left, and he'd send his _and_ Vasey's guards after me to make double sure I got caught. You'd already sworn to kill me if you saw me again. I kind of made some overtures about joining back with you, you might say, but they got laughed off." Allan shrugged. "So there didn't seem to be anything for it but to keep my head down and to keep an eye on Marian. Not that that did any good." He noticed the alarm on Robin's face. "I mean, he wound up stabbing her, didn't he? Not…the other.

But you know why I came back in the end? It wasn't because I hated him, like you did. Not that I ever blamed you, but he never took as much from me as he did from you. It was more that I felt sorry for him. Yes, sorry for him! He wasn't a monster. He had a conscience, you know—ask Marian. Not much of one, but it was there. Unlike Vasey. It was a tiny, dim little thing, not big enough or strong enough to keep him from doing awful things without even thinking, but it nagged at him all the time. He couldn't figure out why he was so unhappy, and even I could see that was it. And that night when we went to Portsmouth, it hit me—if I went to the Holy Land with them…if I helped him kill the king…if I left you bunch in that barn…there was no turning back. I'd be just like him. And the rest of my life, I'd be quenching my conscience , and I'd have to turn into as nasty a piece of work as he was, just to stay alive. And for what? That lordship he promised me? Look what good it had done him! He was such a _miserable_ bastard! He didn't have any friends. For good reason, but I think that's why he liked having me around—he could pretend I was his friend and keep him company. And to tell the truth, I wasn't doing so well in the friend department at the time, and a few of those dinners…we'd have some wine, and he's laugh at some of my stories, and he'd tell some of his own about France…enough wine, and it could get almost cozy."

"He promised you…." Robin began, but he was interrupted by a yell in the back garden.

Allan leaped up and opened the window. It let in a stream of what they both recognized as Arabic profanities. They each stood to the side to look out, as if they were evading arrows on a parapet, and watched smoke pour out of the open oven, and Djaq throw down a tray full of smoldering black lumps, and stalk off.

"Well, I guess I'd better think up something for supper besides bread, then!" Allan said with what was almost his old grin."

"There are two women in this house and they've got _you_ doing the cooking?" Robin was incredulous.

"I know!" Allan agreed. "But I'm not up for heavy chores yet, and I'm better at it than Djaq. Believe it or not," Allan said.

"Poor Will!" said Robin. "I don't think he knows what he's gotten himself into!"

"Innit?" Allan cackled as he poured barley into a cooking pot.

"So, Allan. Tell me about the corn crop when you were with Gisbourne," Robin said.

"I will…_if_ you chop the carrots for me," Allan said.

So the bandit told the soldier and lord about staggered planting dates, and drainage, and crop density, while the two of them cooked. Neither of them noticed the incongruity of it. Both simply enjoyed the other's company. In fact, Robin's only thought—besides of the corn—was how to keep things like this. Surely, there must be a way?

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Notes:

Droit du seigneur: .com/EBchecked/topic/532829/droit-du-seigneur


	12. Chapter 12, This Thy Brother, part 1

**Title:** The Prodigal - Chapter 6 (Part 1), "This Thy Brother Was Lost, and Is Found

**Author:** DCWash

**Characters:** The whole gang makes an appearance at one point or another, though it concentrates, once again, on Robin and Allan.

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating: **You know, I don't think there's even any bad language in this installment, let alone scary scenes.

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 3624

**Summary:** A happy ending. Or is it a happy beginning?

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

It took Marian a moment to realize that it was candlelight that had awakened her, and not sunlight, and that it was coming not from the window, but from the table across the room, where Robin was consulting a paper in front of him and scratching out notes. Curious, Marian went over to see what he was about so late into the night. "What _are_ you doing?" she asked.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Marian. I didn't mean to wake you," Robin said. "I couldn't sleep, and I thought it'd be better to come over here and get it out of my system rather than to toss and turn all night. I've been trying to figure out how best to settle up with Allan."

Marian sat behind Robin on his bench, wrapped her arms around his chest, and leaned her head on his shoulder. She saw a parchment containing two columns, with many entries added to each side, and many crossed out. "And you think you can reduce him to a chart of strengths and weaknesses?" she asked.

"No, but I did think it might help me step back and look at things more clearly." Both columns were a mess, with items added and scratched out. What was apparently the "pro" column included such things as, "Protected Marian from discovery as the Night Watchman" and "Trained and led forces first into the walls during the siege of Nottingham." Only one thing was left in the "con" column, though it was written in large letters: "Sold information on the gang's activities to Guy of Gisbourne before leaving the gang and joining him full time."

Marian sighed. "I thought you two were finally past that."

"If you mean do I still hate him and distrust him, no, I don't. But I can't pretend it never happened. At one point I thought about giving him a job in my stables…."

"That's downright insulting!" Marian cried. "He made one mistake…."

"But it was one _big_ mistake, Marian—you couldn't get much bigger. It wouldn't be fair to the others to act otherwise," Robin said. "Allan pointed out that he didn't have to join the gang, and that's true. But neither did Djaq, and she never wavered. But you're right—it wouldn't be fair to Allan to give him only a token. He did a lot of good work, too."

"Speaking of Djaq…. You don't lose sleep like this over her. And you haven't come up with a settlement for her yet, either," Marian murmered.

"Djaq's situation isn't as urgent as Allan's. I wouldn't have to give her anything and she'd still find a home here. I mean, she's already building her practice, and getting integrated into the community," Robin said. "But if I don't get Allan sorted out soon, I'm afraid he'll start drifting again, and…well, I'm afraid we might lose him altogether."

"But you are going to give her something?"

"Yes," Robin said, a touch testily.

"Well, what, then?"

"Marian…." Robin sometimes found her lack of faith in his abilities to be quite irritating.

"It's just that you never talk about her. And I know it's tempting to think that if she's getting married you won't have to…."

"How about some of Vasey's land in Derbyshire? We've already got a steward managing it; all I'll need to do is change the names on the deeds and then he can direct the rents to her instead of to us. She might not make as much as if I gave her land here, but she wouldn't have to do any of the work, either."

"So she'll have income of her own as well as title to the land, separate from Will?" Marian said.

Robin arched his eyebrows as if to say, "See, your husband isn't so useless after all, now, is he?"

"Oh. Well, then. Alright," a rather chastened Marian said. "So. Allan. I suppose you can do the same thing for him."

"Yeah," Robin said, dubiously. He sighed. "Marian, all I've wanted to do is make sure everybody gets their freedom, and has a roof of their own, and a nice bedrock of capital—not make them rich, but to move them up the ladder a step or two, and to give them some real security. But Allan's starting so far behind the field I don't know if what I can give him will do even that. He's got more skills than I used to think, I'll grant him that, but that Derbyshire land is wool country, and in all the talking Allan and I have done, not once has he mentioned sheep." Robin smiled a thin little smile. "I keep thinking of this thing he said once, when we were at our worst—that I was always in the sun, and he was always in the shade. And I still think that's the one thing he wants most—to walk in the sun, to _be_ somebody. I ought to be able to help him do that. But do you really think working a hill farm in darkest Derbyshire qualifies?"

"Oh, be honest, Robin! You're mainly worried that if you offer him land in Derbyshire, he'll take you up on it! You want him here, with you, so he can be another one of your drinking buddies," Marian chuckled. She and Robin were engaging in a gentle game of push me-pull me, with Marian leaning her weight against Robin's back for emphasis and him rocking backwards to make his own points.

"You know, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed his company," Robin admitted. "Well, except for when I wanted to strangle him. Will's always felt too much younger than me to be real mates with, and Much…I love Much like a brother, but he can be so sensitive! With Allan, though, I can sit back and take the piss, and he's not afraid to take it back. I wonder…." Robin thought for a bit. "Maybe instead of land, I can give him a job. Not working in the stables, but something with some clout. Like the one I gave John. Except," he sighed, as he rubbed his eyes, "I don't have anything open right now."

"Will you any time soon, with all your plans for Locksley?"

"Mmmm…maybe."

"So it looks to me like you're trying to find something that pays decent money, that carries some status, that helps him settle down, that's permanent enough to provide him with long-term security, that will keep him busy enough to stay out of trouble but that doesn't put so much pressure on him that he loses his sense of humor, and that's close at hand. Oh, but it can't be _too_ good because while you want to reward him for his good work, you also want to punish him just a bit for going over to Guy." Marian said it in such a neutral voice that Robin wasn't sure if she was being ironic or not.

"Yeah, that pretty much covers it. Oh, and gives him some autonomy, so he doesn't chafe too badly and bolt on us. Any ideas?"

The thought that she might have the answer made Marian laugh. "No, but I do have a few suggestions that might make coming up with a plan easier: One, instead of thinking in terms of making things fair by giving Allan less, think in terms of giving the other members of the gang more."

"You don't think I've been stingy with them, do you?" Robin asked. He hoped not.

"No-o," Marian replied. "But I do think you could be more generous, even if it's just a token. We can afford it. And, two…" She stood up and slipped her arms from around Robin's chest to around his neck. "Ask yourself if, by working for Guy, Allan might have actually done more good than harm."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for instance, he saved my skin at least twice," Marian said. "And I wouldn't be surprised if he stayed Guy's hand on occasion—he seemed to have that kind of influence. I dunno, I'm not saying it balances out absolutely, but it might be worth considering. And three…" She bent forward and blew out the candle. "Come to bed and sleep on it!"

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Robin took Marian's suggestions into consideration, and over the coming days, put them in action. First he wrote to the priest in Crawley, making discreet inquiries into Allan's legal status—Robin doubted if he was still on the rolls as a runaway serf, but if he was, that needed to be taken care of before they proceeded further. Then, Robin started with the others, supplementing what they had all assumed were final settlements. Besides the Derbyshire land, he gave Djaq an entire small hill. The land was pretty scrubby, but she had spoken fondly of herding goats when she was in the Holy Land, and this would be perfect for goats. (As it turned out, she was more excited about her overgrown hill than the fine Derbyshire pastures. "I can learn to make cheese!" she said. _Since the bread idea worked out so well_, Robin thought.) He gave Will a bit more farmland, but what pleased Will more was that he found good tenants for all of it so Will would only have to do farm work at harvest and haymaking, when farming operated on an all-hands-on-deck basis and even rich overlords joined in. John's pay came out of a stipend awarded by the crown, and now Robin added a percentage from his own funds. As for Winifred…well, Robin had a Grand and Secret Scheme in the works for when (and he was sure it was "when" and not "if") Winifred moved to Locksley from Featherston, involving new houses and cottages and Will and Djaq and Winifred and a proper bakehouse instead of a utilitarian clay oven, but it was all a mystery to Marian. She thought it interesting that he did _not_ give Much any additional property but Robin had a confession to make: When he promised Much the Bonchurch lodge and its surrounding fields, and when Much eagerly accepted, they were in the Holy Land, and neither one of them realized just how big those fields were. Robin's intention was to make Much comfortable, not to make him rich, which is what would happen if things went through as originally proposed. But a promise was a promise, so he sucked in his breath and signed over the whole thing last summer. Robin thought it proper that there be some disparity from his settlement on Much and the settlements he gave the others, given how long Much had been with him, but the disparity turned out to be so great that he now didn't feel comfortable adding to it. Luckily, neither did Much.

One Tuesday, the men gathered at Bonchurch, as had become their habit, only to find Much wasn't there. They were shocked, especially Robin, who had arranged for Much to come to Locksley Manor the next day so they could do a land swap or whatever else was necessary to rationalize the border between their estates. So instead of drinking at Bonchurch, they descended on Featherston, since Allan was doing so much better. It made for a delightful evening, until Winifred got fed up with them all. ("_That's_ why you came home so early!" Marian said. "She kicked you out!")

Robin tried, for the final time, to press Allan on the subject of his beating. "Do you remember anything about it at all?" he asked.

"No," Allan muttered.

"Byron says you weren't robbed. Well, except for maybe your horse, but since they left your purse and sword, he's thinking she may have wandered off instead of been stolen," Robin said.

Allan looked sullen, but didn't say anything, and Robin realized, _He knows. It was Walter after all, and maybe others. But he won't grass._

The next day, Robin and John were interfering with Will's work on the house he was building when Much rode up, right on schedule…leading a fine bay mare, and surprising everybody.

"You're here!" Will exclaimed. "We've been worried about you!"

"No, we haven't," John said. "_You've_ been worried. _We_ thought maybe you had something else to do last night."

"I did!" Much said. "What, Will? You think all I do on an evening is sit around in case you lot come calling? No, I had business in Nottingham and it ran late and I couldn't get back. I thought about you, but you know what it was that I thought? 'Well, that's what they get for taking me for granted. They'll just have to spill beer on somebody else's floor tonight.' That's what I thought."

"We did," Robin said.

"Poor Winifred!" John chuckled.

"Winifred?" Much said.

"Yeah. It occurred to us that the only reason Allan hasn't joined us before has been because he wasn't up to walking that far. So we went to him," Will said.

"Speaking of whom…" said Robin, "Isn't that his horse?"

"_That's_ why it looks so familiar!" John said. "How in the world did you find Allan's horse?"

"I told Robin back when Allan first got hurt: I go to Nottingham most Thursdays to see a man about horses. He thought it was a euphemism. It's not." (_Well, it was at the time, but anyway…._ Much thought, a little guiltily.) "I thought that a courser as nice as this one would turn up for sale at some point, and sure enough, when I was up there yesterday, he said he had her. So, we did a little 'horse trading,' and now…." Much beamed.

Robin saw that John had a puzzled look on his face and, to preempt his questions on why Much had regular dealings with a horse thief (though he wondered himself), Robin jumped in to change the subject. "I've been meaning to ask you lads—what do you think of Allan's prospects as a farmer?"

"A _farmer?_ Allan?" Much said.

"Theoretically. Do you think he's got it in him?" Robin asked.

The men all looked at each other, not sure what to say. They had never thought of Allan that way. But then…. "Well, he did a good job of looking after our horses when we were in Sherwood," Much said, dubiously. "Now the cows we stole, that's another story…."

"He helped Winifred get her rye crop in last autumn," John said. "Did a good job of it, too, from what I could tell."

"And he did a good job sowing my winter wheat for me," Will added. "At least, I think he did a good job. It _looked_ like he did a good job. I mean, it's not up yet, so I can't tell for sure. But then, it's not _supposed_ to be up yet, anyway…."

"But Robin, you should know. Didn't he manage the corn crop when he was…er…at Locksley Manor?" Much asked. "How did that turn out?"

"That's what prompted my question. Allan told me about his plans for that year, and they didn't sound too wild and it was obvious he put a lot of thought into them. But I've been looking at the records, and it's kind of hard to tell if it paid off. Yields were better that year, but not by a lot, and you could chalk it up to a lot of different factors. I'm wondering if he told the workers what he wanted them to do, and they said, 'Yes, sir!' and then went about doing the same things they'd always done," Robin said. "I'm not sure how much Allan really had to do with it, especially considering how frequently Gisbourne pulled him out of Locksley."

That produced a knowing smile from the men and Robin was reminded, somewhat uncomfortably, that they probably knew the inner workings of the peasantry better than himself. Besides, they seemed to have run out of Allan-related farming anecdotes already. "Ah, well," he said, rather wishing he hadn't brought the subject up. "C'mon, Much. We have work to do."

And work they did. They rolled out the plat maps and the deeds and took field trips to see the properties in question first hand and, with the help of some beer Marian brought in, eventually got it sorted out so there were no more instances of such things as Robin owning half an orchard within what they both thought were the Bonchurch property borders, while Much owned the other half.

The end result gave Robin ideas, ideas he was still pondering a few days later when

Winifred brought her bread to town.

"Winifred!" Robin called as he approached. "Could you do me a favor? I've got Allan's mare. Could you take it with you when you go home?

"Not on your life. I have enough trouble with sweet Netta here. If I try to take on both horses at once, I expect only two of us will make it back to the house in one piece. And I kind of think I won't be one of those two. Besides, I don't even know if Allan will still be there when I get back. I got the feeling he thinks it's getting toward time to move on again."

Robin stamped, and hissed through is teeth in an obvious attempt to refrain from swearing in front of a old lady, before settling down and asking, "Winifred, what is _wrong_ with him? You'd almost think…." He sighed. "Winifred, a while back, you said whatever was going on with Allan wasn't my fault—'at least not directly,' you said. What did you mean than that? I thought we had patched things up, but if he's talking of leaving…."

Winifred shook her head. "I don't think it's as simple as that." She took a deep breath. "Before he met you, Allan was a sneak-thief, and a cut-purse, and a cheat, and a liar. Then he meets you, and turns into a hero. You made him proud, and made him think in terms of right and wrong. Those are gifts you gave him, Robin, make no mistake about it. Gifts! But now what? What's he supposed to do with gifts like that? If he's not a hero any more, then what is he? What good does right and wrong do for a thief? He has to figure those things out for himself. That's why he's been flailing around so much, and still is. And there's not a lot any of us can do while he does it but watch."

Robin ran a finger down Netta's nose. "Will was a hero. And he's not getting himself beaten up by guards. Or running away into some…void."

"Will's also the son of Dan and Jane Scarlet. They knew how to raise a boy. And you're forgetting, he was a bit of a local hero even before you came back. You didn't give him anything he didn't already have. Made it stronger, maybe, but it wasn't new."

Robin nodded, still concentrating on Netta's nose, making her nicker. (Sometimes it's easier to ponder what a person is saying if you don't have to look at them while they're saying it.) He thought he knew the answer to this question—kind of, sort of, vaguely—but asking it out loud, and hearing Winifred's answer, might help him give it more form. "Is that why Allan didn't even want me to know he was here?"

She sighed. "Think of it this way. Any coin has two sides. You can't have pride without having shame. The two go together. And he's been so…_confused_…these last months that when he thinks of you, shame's the side of the coin that comes up."

Robin nodded. _And maybe not just lately,_ he thought, remembering some of the things that had been said at the lowest point of their relationship.

Robin could feel Winifred's unspoken words: _Of course, it's not like he has a real reason to stay, either, what with no land or job or anything._ He countered them with audible words of his own. "Winifred, please, can you hang on to him for a few more days? Just a few more days, I promise, that's all it'll take."

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Robin lost more sleep over the next couple of nights. He knew he had to act quickly, even though he was still unsure in his own mind about Marian's idea that Allan might have done more good than harm in Gisbourne's service. One thing in particular was nagging at him, and he needed to talk to Allan about it face to face before making any final decisions.

When he rode up to Winifred's, he saw Allan hacking at the ground with a spade, apparently getting going with the first steps of turning a spring garden. _Looks like he's well enough to do the heavy chores now_, Robin thought.

Allan looked up at Robin's approach and exclaimed with surprise and delight, "My horse! Where…how'd you find her?"

"I didn't. Much did," Robin said. "He apparently…knows people," he added, holding his hands up with a, "hey, don't ask _me_, I don't know any more than you do" gesture. "He left her with me the other day since it's easier for me to get to Featherston than it is for him to. I tried getting Winifred to bring her back with her on Wednesday, but I think horses may be the only thing that woman's afraid of."

"She's thin. I wonder what you've been up to, girl?" Allan said, running his fingers down the mare's nose. But he was beaming with pleasure. It occurred to Robin that his horse and sword were just about the only things Allan owned, and that he must have felt her loss keenly. "Come on, girl. I've got some nice rye hay for you," he murmured to the mare, leading her to the stall within the house. "Oh!" Allan turned, as if just now remembering that Robin was with them. "I've got something to show you, too!"

Once inside, Allan sat down at the table. With a smile in his eyes and a flourish of the hand, he picked up a quill and dipped in ink that Robin had sent over, and started to write on a piece of the parchment Robin had also sent. As he had the last time Robin saw him write, Allan put a lot of concentration into his work, pressing the tip of his tongue against the edge of his top teeth. It took longer than Robin would have anticipated, but eventually Allan blew on the parchment to dry the ink and presented it to Robin with a proud smile. The letters were a little shaky, and it was hardly written in what anybody would call a "fine hand," but it was perfectly legible. "Allan a Dale" it said.

"Don't know what I'm going to do with it, but there it is," Allan said, modestly. Robin, on the other hand, was so proud he thought he might cry. It made it hard for him to say what he had to say.

"Allan," he started, hesitantly, "I need to ask you about something. A girl came to me the other day, asking me if I would let her move out of Locksley. It seems people have been harassing her over her past with one of Gisbourne's men, and when I pressed her on it, it sounded like they might have meant you, though she refused to say much besides professing her innocence. Do you know anything about it?"

Allan looked puzzled. "Other than Constance…." He shook his head.

Robin nodded. "Another question that's been bugging me: That purse Gisbourne gave you to give to Emma. What happened to it? Did she take it?"

"Oh, no. That's what made me so ashamed of myself."

"So you kept it?"

"Well, kind of. You know that girl I told you about, the kid who showed up at the gates, looking to turn some tricks? I used to pass it on to her in dribs and drabs. Told her she was only to use it to feed her family, and she'd only keep getting payments from me so long as she kept her nose clean. I checked up on her every now and then to make sure she was true to her word," Allan said.

"How long did this go on?" Robin asked.

"Oooh…most of the time I was in Locksley, I guess. Til I left, at any rate," Allan said.

"How much money did Gisbourne put in that purse?" Robin wondered.

"More than you'd think. But it didn't seem right to just cut her off when that ran out, so I added to it. Of course, I told her not to tell anybody—I didn't want every girl in the county to come rattling around looking for payoffs. And she wanted her father to think she had a proper job, so we'd meet on kind of neutral ground. You'd have thought we were up to no good, the way we snuck around," Allan said, ruefully.

"'More good than harm,'" Robin murmured. Allan looked at him, puzzled. "Allan! That girl…that's who wants to move out of Locksley! You two may have tried to keep it secret, but it didn't work! People realized something was going on between you two, and assumed the worst, and now they're taking it out on her!" Robin was downright delighted by this turn of events. "Allan," he said, "Come on. Let's go for a ride."


	13. Chapter 13 finale, This Thy Brother

**Title:** The Prodigal - Chapter 6 (Part 2), "This Thy Brother Was Lost, and Is Found"

**Author:** DCWash

**Characters:** The whole gang makes an appearance at one point or another, though it concentrates, once again, on Robin and Allan.

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to BBC/Tiger Aspect.

**Rating:** All is sunshine and light.

**Spoilers:** None, really.

**Length:** 3624

**Summary:** A happy ending. Or is it a happy beginning?

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

"No! Really! From all those years ago!"

"Yes, really! I thought he was going to Nottingham to visit that widow who was sweet on him during the siege, but what he's been doing is trying to track down Eve!"

Allan and Robin were enjoying themselves so much gossiping that they didn't notice that the first haze of green was starting to break out in Sherwood.

"But what's this about him and a horse thief?"

"I'm kind of scared to ask. But it sounds like he's had regular doings with this fellow."

"Do you think Much _knows_ he's a thief?"

Robin sighed. "Who can tell with Much?"

They were riding through the forest at a brisk walk. The had tried a short gallop, but though Allan's health was infinitely improved from the time he first arrived at Featherston, he was still easily winded by strenuous exercise and they decided that was enough of the hard stuff. Besides, he hadn't been on a horse in weeks, and needed to get his seat under him again.

"Hey, how much do you think I owe him for this?"

"Ah, don't worry about it. He's been wanting to do something for you."

"No, seriously. I want to keep us even."

"That 'turning over a new leaf' thing, eh? I tell you what. Ask him, and then take him up on whatever price he gives you. I know his thinking. You'll ask, he'll panic, he'll want to make the horse a gift to you, but then he'll think that he doesn't want to be patronizing, so he'll throw out some number that is a lot less than what he really paid and that he thinks you can afford. Pay that. It'll make you both feel like you've done the right thing and still got a bargain in the deal. Ah, look! Here we are!"

They were topping a ridge over a pretty little valley. Looking down, they could see the road they were on—heading in the direction of Locksley—crossing the road that ran between Bonchurch and Nottingham. That meant Bonchurch was behind the slight hill to the left of the crossroads, and the ford in the river was behind the line of trees in the distance on the right. A stream curved through the valley, roughly paralleling the road to the river and passing through a culvert on their own road below. Robin, ever the lord of the manor and thus ever appraising these things, noted with satisfaction (and some surprise) that, because of the culvert, the crossroads below was comfortably dry, even though the stream was swollen by all the rain they'd had this winter.

Allan was also a surveying the scene for his own purposes, though in his mind he was using the term "casing the joint." He was a smart man. He figured Robin had a purpose in bringing him to this particular spot. And he had the feeling Robin had decided—or at least was further along in the process of deciding—on a settlement for him. He kept an eye peeled on for clues as to what that might be.

He thought he spotted one quite literally in the crossroads. _So he wants me to be his toll collector,_ Allan thought. _Well, that's a little disappointing._ Allan's sense of fairness went both ways and he had no expectations of Robin settling as much on him as he had on the others, given all their respective histories. But, still…toll collector? _That's a bit of nothing, innit? As if people didn't hate me enough already._

But no. Robin dismounted as they approached the nearest gate. "Give me a hand with this, will you?" he asked. He lifted up the tree limb that served as a bar and Allan, still on his horse, raised it the rest of the way so Robin could lead his own horse under it. "I see what John's been fussing about now. Vasey got permission to put these in to pay for the culvert, but of course that was just his excuse to leech more money out of people. They've got to go. Can you imagine a worse symbol of tyranny than not being able to travel down a public road without paying a grubby toll collector for the privilege?" Robin said.

_Alrighty, then_, Allan thought. _So I guess I won't be taking tolls._ Robin had tethered his horse to a chestnut tree standing between the stream and the ridge, and paused while Allan did the same. Allan followed him closely as he proceeded up the slight but rocky and overgrown slope on foot towards a house of unusual architecture. Weeds were trodden down in such a way that it looked like somebody had been there fairly recently, but that person must have been the first one in quite some time. Neither particularly small nor particularly large, the house looked neglected, but not dilapidated, and Allan began to notice outbuildings behind that had been camouflaged by more weeds and the shadow of the ridge. A spring tumbled down the ridge behind the house and joined the stream below. Allan took it all in with a kind of abstract interest, wondering what Robin was up to. He caught Robin looking at him with a kind of sly eagerness, and it came to him: _I think there's a point to all this, but I'm not sure what. He thinks I'm on to him, but he's not positive I am. So let's both enjoy ourselves and let it play out._ He returned Robin's expression with a similar one of his own.

"So, what do you think?" Robin asked. "Think this would make a good tavern? Any village worth it's salt has its own alehouse. Besides," he said with a twinkle. "I think Much is pretty fed up with us treating his lodge like our own personal watering hole."

_Aha! Running a tavern! That's more like it!_ Allan thought. _On the other hand…._He got the feeling that Robin was serious, not just about the possibility of a tavern in that spot, but in wanting Allan's input. After all, Allan had worked in taverns and Robin hadn't. So he approached the question thoughtfully.

"How far's Locksley from here?" he asked.

"Just over that rise. I'd say it's probably about a fifteen, twenty-minute walk."

"And Nottingham?"

"It's a good bit further. Maybe an hour's ride?"

Allan pondered it a bit. "Well, you're at a crossroads. That's a good thing. You'll get the traveler traffic, though to be honest, neither of these are very busy roads. Keep your prices down and you might get trade from people coming and going to the Nottingham market who don't want to pay Nottingham prices for a pint and a bite. I'm not so sure about the Locksley and Bonchurch custom, though. Those folks have their own favorite places by now, though if it were me, I'd rather walk the little bit to this one than take the hike they must be taking. But why here and not someplace like the Locksley green?" Allan asked.

"Well, it's here, and it's empty—I wouldn't have to build a new place or wait for somebody to move out of a current one. And…I have my reasons." That look again, and this time Allan was the one who cracked.

"Those reasons wouldn't include the fact that it's easy enough to get to but still doesn't stick a less-than-beloved tavern-keeper right up everybody's nose?" he said. He grinned up at Robin in what was almost one of his patented crooked smiles.

Robin roared with laughter. "Yes! You got it! So…_what do you think?_" Allan couldn't get over his eagerness.

What Allan thought was, "_Kind of a lonely place, innit? You won't make much off your cut of the trade here, old son. But still, it's a roof, and it's tavern work, and it's here with your friends, and it beats the hell out of the life you've been living. Not quite what I had hoped to get out of Robin, but…."_ He kept the grin, and nodded, and said, "Well, lets take a look inside and see how it fits out!"

It took Robin a little work to get the door open, but once he did, and once Allan's eyes adjusted to the dimness, he thought it would do well enough. At first glance it was your bog-standard one-room house, but….

"Edmund, the carpenter over in Allerton, built it, and he said it's the first time he's built a house with a fireplace and chimney on the end instead of a central hearth and smoke hole in the roof. He said he _thinks_ it worked alright, since Eric de Moignes didn't complain about it, and he—or at least his wife—was the complaining kind. Of course, they weren't here that long," Robin said.

"_That's_ what's different!" Allan said. "I couldn't put my finger on it." He went across the room to open the window for more light.

"Yeah, Edmund said Eric and his wife fought the whole time he was working on it. She wanted something modern, he wanted something traditional, so this is the compromise," Robin said. "This" meant the fireplace at one end and an old-fashioned animal stall at the other, despite the outbuildings. Allan was wandering around, taking a good look—a good-sized window and door on each side of the house, the fireplace on one end and small windows over the stall on the other, stone gables, a roof that looked in good-enough shape when he gave it a cursory glance: a solid piece of work, he'd say. "And I don't think they even used that stall," Robin continued. "If they did, they sure did clean it out well before they left, and they ran out so suddenly, I doubt if they did that. I mean, they left that chest here, after all, and there's still some tools in the shed and hay in the barn."

"I can turn the stall into a kitchen, or a bedroom, maybe," Allan said. The place was growing on him. "So! How do you want to work it? I assume I'll take a share of the cut as my pay?"

Robin looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Unless you're thinking of wages or a salary or something. I just thought, as your taverner…." Now Allan was confused.

"Allan…you won't be my taverner. You'll be your own taverner. Allan…it's yours."

"Mine?" Allan blinked…once…twice. "Your giving me a tavern?"

"Yeah! You didn't expect that?"

This was such good news and such bad news at the same time, Allan didn't know what to think. He had assumed that, in working for Robin, Robin would supply the grain and the barrels and the furniture and everything else he'd need to make beer and provide a hospitable place. But if he, Allan, was to own it outright and not just manage it…well, where were those things going to come from? Country taverns were usually run by farmers with enough surplus grain to make their profit by turning it into beer. They didn't need to buy supplies because they grew them themselves, and the tavern itself was just a room in their house, and if they only had the one room, then the tavern was also their living space. How on earth was he going to afford it? Even if Robin provided some kind of start-up capital, he'd need barley on an ongoing basis….

Robin saw the look of concern on Allan's face. "Allan, land's part of the package. Don't worry about that."

"Land?" Allan blinked again. "Your giving me _land?_"

"Yes." Robin didn't think he'd ever seen Allan speechless like this and he was beginning to find it amusing. "The titles to the land over here were such a checkerboard of little plats that Much and I sat down and started swapping pieces out until it came out even and made sense—to give you an idea of what we were dealing with, one of those toll gates seems to have belonged to me, and the other to Much. And when we were done, I looked at the map and saw that we had carved out a nice little farm between Sherwood and Locksley. So…."

Allan rushed out the door, ignoring Robin's story, but Robin followed, continuing his thought. "So I came out and had a look, and got a feel for where the house was positioned, and it occurred to me…." Allan still wasn't listening, but was looking intently about him, assaying everything he saw was a more rigorous eye than when he was a mere tenant. Robin thought he'd shift tack.

"It's not a lot of land. But not much of it is waste, either. There's that scrubland over there across the road you'll probably want to get rid of, eventually…."

"That's not scrubland, that's a coppice," Allan said, quietly. "It's hard to tell, because nobody's done anything with it for the past couple of years, but I should be able to get it in shape without too much trouble." Now it was Robin's turn to be speechless. "A coppice. There's probably one on your estate but somebody else looks after it and doesn't bother you with the details. It's a way of managing woodland like cropland, so you can harvest the timber on a regular basis. We had them all over Sussex. That's how we were able to keep getting wood to make that charcoal when I was a kid. But this one looks like it's hazel and ash, for fences and tools and faggots and such."

Robin was astonished. "Allan! I lived with you in a bleeding _forest_ for _more than three years_ and you never once said anything about '_managing woodland'!"_ Robin roared.

"Well, we were in the middle of the trees, weren't we? No need to manage anything—it's all there for the taking." Allan seemed to be coming out of his daze, though Robin seemed to be going into his own.

It took him a moment to recover. "Alright. So it has even less wasteland than I thought. Are you at all interested in getting an idea of the boundaries of the place?" Allan smiled and nodded, fast and hard. _Like Will did when I asked if he wanted Djaq to join the gang_, Robin remembered. "The top of the ridge, behind us—that's the northern border. Sherwood Forest officially begins and ends there. Over there, behind your…coppice," Robin said, pointing across the road, "That, roughly, is the southern boundary, running along that little rise. We're pretty much on the eastern border right here. Go over the slope to the left and you start hitting Bonchurch land—you and Much will be neighbors. The rest of it runs down both sides of the road to the river. See it?" Allan nodded again and started walking the length of the house, back and forth, peering in all directions and breathing fast. _He's like a startled colt,_ Robin thought. _And if I stand here, all still and calm, he'll start to tame himself._

What worked for horses seemed to work for men, at least this time. Eventually, Allan stopped pacing, and started breathing more normally—_though I think he's actually __**sniffing**__ at things,_ Robin thought at one point—and said, "I'm sorry. It's just that…I didn't think…."

"My thought was that the tavern and the farm could kind of back each other up: If the tavern doesn't do so well in this spot, well, you're still in a position to raise your own food. And if the farm only does all right, and not that great, you'll still be able to earn some cash with the tavern. Like I said Allan, it's really not that much land—only about a hide and a half," Robin gently said. "Enough to raise a family in reasonable comfort, but your not going to get rich off of it. Not by a long shot."

"That's okay!" Allan said, earnestly. "That's plenty! I wouldn't know what to do with more!" And, actually, Robin's own thoughts had been something along those lines—there wasn't much point in giving Allan more than he could work himself if he wasn't going to provide him with the workers as well.

"But let me make sure we're talking about the same thing," Allan continued. "This land, this house…you're giving me the actual _title_, right? I won't be a tenant? Not that…."

"I'm giving you a freehold on the property. Lawyers write entire books on what it means to actually 'own' land in England, but for all practical purposes, you own it. You can turn around and sell it to somebody else if you want to, and I won't be able to stop you, though I hope you don't. Oh, and a couple of other houses, too, over that-a-way." Robin pointed towards the southwest. "You can't see them from here, but there are a couple of families who have houses and gardens on this side of the river but plant their crops on the other side. I thought I'd throw just the houses into the mix—it's still my farmland that they'll be working. Because that's all it is, you won't get much out of them at all, but it'll be a little bit more of that backup I was talking about. Their leases expire in the autumn and they know you're the new owner. You'll need to work it out with them how much rent to pay." Allan looked a little anxious. "Maybe a day's worth of plowing in the spring and a day's worth of help on the harvest in the autumn," Robin suggested. "Something like that." The suggestion made Allan breathe a little easier.

"But I don't pay you rent, right? And nobody can take it away for me? I mean, unless I do something like try to overthrow the king." Robin noted with pleasure that Allan was starting to get a bit of his cheekiness back.

"Well, you'll have to pay your taxes. There's that. And this makes you my vassal." Allan nodded, okay with the term. He knew that the way the world worked: everybody, even Robin, served as somebody's vassal—for all he knew the king was even vassal to the pope. "Traditionally, the vassal gives his lord military service and counsel. That generally means when the king calls me to go to war, I call on my vassals to join me. But…" Robin said, screwing up his face in skepticism. "I've had it with fighting. They've started this new thing called scutage where instead of going to fight myself and bringing my vassals with me, I can pay a fee that the king can use to pay professional soldiers. I expect that's what I'll do, especially since…." Here Robin became a bit embarrassed. "You, and Will, and John…there's nobody braver! And you know how to fight one-on-one like nobody I've ever seen before! But…"

"But we're not real soldiers like Much. You've said it before. And you're right," Allan shrugged. He wasn't insulted. "We're no knights, and that's what the king wants."

"Yes! That's it! You're ace fighters, but you're not knights!" Robin was relieved Allan took the comment in the spirit it was intended, seeing how prickly he had been lately. "But I've got this idea of how I can put you to use anyway. Allan, trouble's coming, I know it," Robin sighed. "I hope it'll be a long time from now, but it's coming. I kept hearing reports when I was in Huntingdonshire about raiders in the south _and_ in the north, and Prince John's vassals skirmishing with King Richard's. And with me having to travel so much more than I used to, it almost makes Locksley a target for that kind of thing. So I was thinking, maybe instead of having you lot go to France or the Holy Land, you can stay here and protect Locksley…with or without me. You lads may not be much in the way of soldiers, but that kind of fighting is what we've been doing for more than five years now, and you're the best in the business at it."

"So the old gang would turn into a kind of home guard?" Allan asked. He found the idea intriguing.

"Exactly! Keep your training up, and hope that it's never needed. But everybody, including me, will breathe easier knowing it's there. And as for the counsel…you, particularly, could really help me out by keeping me abreast with what's going on and what people are saying."

"You mean you want me to spy for you?" Allan couldn't believe it, but that's what it sounded like.

"No. No spying. It's just…." Robin sighed again. "Nobody tells me anything any more, Allan! It used to be I'd ask a peasant how things were going, and I'd get a half-hour lecture on how it was too wet for rye but the wheat was doing well, if only the taxes were lower, because the neighbors had a baby on the way, and on and on and on, when I was only making a pleasantry. But now? Now that I'm lord of the manor, all I get is 'fine, sir,' when I really need to know _how things are going!_ With a tavern, especially, you're in a position to have a finger on what people are worried about, and grousing about. That's all I mean. Help me understand the mood of community, and tell me when something's working and when it isn't. You're also in a position to hear the news from travelers before anyone else, and you can pass on what seems important."

"I can do that. Hell, I've always told you when you've screwed up before, haven't I?" Allan said. "Are Djaq and Winifred included in this?"

"Yeah, but we'd better keep it quiet. I value their judgment but I can see some of the men around here having kittens over the thought of their lord getting advice from women. Let alone letting those women fight!" Robin and Allan both laughed, and Allan seemed (to Robin's eyes, at least) to actually be standing a little taller.

"Well! So what do we do to make this official? Do I need to sign anything? Because I can now," Allan said with pride.

Robin had hoped they could gloss over this part. He wished it was as simple as signing a paper. "Oh, there's this ceremony. It's no big deal. You want to head down the road to look at your fields?"

"Sure," Allan said as they started towards the road. "But what about this ceremony? What's it like?" Allan asked.

"Um, I sit in a chair and you…um…kneel before me, and I…um…take your hands in mine…" Robin mumbled. It took him a moment to realize he had continued walking while Allan had stopped.

"I _kneel before you?_ And we _hold hands?_ What? Are we getting married or something?" Allan knew there had to be a fly in this ointment somewhere, and this appeared to be it.

"It's the law, Allan! That's the way it works. I did it with the king, John's done it with me. Winifred's done it, too, and I'm not sure she even had to!" Robin didn't tell him that Djaq had laughed out loud at the thought, and he still hadn't corralled Will into it yet. "It's short, it's sweet, there doesn't have to be a roomful of witnesses…." Robin thought he wouldn't mention the kissing part until he had to. Instead, "There'll be wine afterwards!"

Allan seemed to be coming around. At least, he was walking alongside Robin again. "And so long as I pay my taxes and do this poncey ceremony, nobody can tell me how to run my place?" he asked.

"Up to a point," Robin wanted to rein Allan in before he started getting larcenous ideas. "For instance, that spring," Robin tilted his head to the one behind the house. "Some of the folks around here think it's a holy spring. I'd appreciate it if you let them have access to it. All they'll do is tie some ribbon or something around a branch at the source and take a drink. You can see it if you climb the ridge a bit. As for the tavern…." Robin took on a stern demeanor, trying to figure out a way to throw his weight around without, well, throwing his weight around. "I want this to be a clean place, Allan!"

"Of course!" (How often had Robin heard that before?)

"No whores. No gambling," Robin continued.

"Rob-in!" Allan said in his old wheedling voice, "No gambling? The only way I can promise that is keep anybody from playing any games. And the only way I can promise no whores is by banning women completely. And if I do that, what happens to poor Agnes and Joan? Two old sisters who hardly ever see each other any more because one lives in Featherston and one lives in Clun and the walk's gotten too to be too much for them. But this place…it's halfway between, isn't it? They can handle that! Each of them walking here, meeting the other, having a knees up and a bit of chat and maybe a cider or two, then back home to their own hearth. I'd be performing a public service! But no women and no games? You know what that gets you? A bunch of morose geezers staring into their beers, not saying a word. Now, that's not the kind of community gathering place you had in mind, is it?"

Robin stood there and tried to look grave as Allan went down this path. It had been a long time since he had heard Allan unspool like this.

"But I get what you have in mind. I do, really. So how about this? I promise—hand to heart—that I won't run any whores or let anybody run them out of my place. But if a girl and a bloke happen to lock eyes in my tavern, and happen to meet again later, and a little money happens to very discretely exchange hands…well, that's no reflection on anything, is it? And the same thing for the gambling. If you're going to have a happy tavern, you've gotta have games, and if you have games, there's going to be betting. But it's one thing for two mates to have a friendly flutter and it's something else for a sharpie to use my place as his base of operations to shear the local populace." Allan caught Robin's eye and toned it down a bit. "Think of it this way. A country tavern should be the kind of place where Farmer Smith can send his 18-year-old daughter on an evening to get a bucket of beer for the family dinner and not worry about her honour being besmirched. But it shouldn't be so dull that she can come down on her own at midnight and nobody'd notice."

That…that really was as good a description as Robin could imagine of the kind of tavern he had in mind, much to his own surprise. A place where his people can let down their hair, but that's still hews to certain community standards of behavior. Where travelers can stop and get a meal and get warm and, maybe, get shelter for the night without worrying that they'll be robbed in their sleep. But Robin didn't want to appear to give in too quickly. So he nodded and turned and started walking so Allan couldn't see him smile.

"Agnes and Joan. Two elderly sisters. One in Clun and one in Featherston. I'm having a hard time placing them," he said.

"I…um…made them up," Allan admitted. Robin swore he could _hear_ his sheepish grin. "But the point still stands! If they're not real, they _should_ be real! And who knows, after a while maybe they _will_ be real!"

Robin groaned, audibly, but what he was thinking was, _He's back! Our Allan's finally come back!_ He cleared his throat. "There's a couple of other little duties, I suppose. Keep that culvert from backing up. And keep an eye on the ford over the river. I don't mean you have to do heavy maintenance or anything, just give your side of it a good look-over every now and then, especially after a big rain, and let me know if anything needs to be done. By the way, you have fishing rights from the banks on your side, but no weirs. The field can get kind of marshy over there where the stream joins the river," Robin said, pausing to point northeast, "But there's still good pasture on that side of the road, and…." He hadn't noticed Allan wasn't right with him.

Robin looked back and saw Allan about half a dozen paces behind, bent over and grasping his knees. He seemed to be breathing funny and Robin, remembering what Djaq had said, began to panic about an asthma attack. As he neared, though, Allan stood up and looked at him with glittering eyes. "I just realized something," he murmured. "The house you're giving me…that chimney…there's no smoke! I'll be able to…I won't…." Robin shrugged, a little unnerved at how moved Allan appeared to be. By now tears were streaming down Allan's face. He turned around in a circle, surveying his property once again, and faced Robin. And he whispered, "Thank you."


End file.
